Gustav Nossal was born in Bad Ischl, Austria, in 1931, and came to Australia with his family in 1939. He studied medicine at the University of Sydney and, after two years' residency at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, moved to Melbourne to work as a Research Fellow at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, leading to a Doctor of Philosophy Degree. Apart from two years as Assistant Professor of Genetics at Stanford University, one year at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and one year as a Special Consultant to the World Health Organization, all Nossal's research career has been at the Hall Institute, of which he became Director in 1965. Nossal is also Professor of Medical Biology at The University of Melbourne.
Nossal's research is in fundamental immunology, and he has written five books and 380 scientific articles in this and related fields. He is also interested in the interface between science and society, well illustrated by his last two books
"Medical Science and Human Goals" and "Reshaping Life : Key Issues in Genetic Engineering", his former membership of the Australian Science and Technology Council, six years on the Council of the Australian Academy of Science, and his current membership of the Board of CSIRO. Nossal's work in the field of international health is carried out in collaboration with the world Health Organization, of which he has been a key consultant for over 15 years.
Nossal was knighted in 1977, and has received numerous other honours from the United Kingdom, the United States, the. Federal Republic of Germany, France, India and Israel. Amongst the most significant are Fellow of The Royal Society of London, Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Emil van Behring Prize, West Germany, and the Rabbi Shai Shacknai Prize, Israel, and over fifty named lectures in many parts of the world.