100 years flashback

This year marks the 100th year of publication of Immunology & Cell Biology. In this Virtual issue, we reproduce the first issue of Volume 1 of the journal (from March 1924). To provide context for these 100-year-old articles, we need to go back into the history of the early days of the journal and of those who brought it into being. The journal, originally titled the Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science, was founded and initially financed by the Medical Sciences Club of South Australia, which had been established in 1920. The rationale for starting this journal was to provide a forum for original research or concepts in newly emerging fundamental sciences ancillary to the “keystone” fields of human physiology and clinical medicine. These included studies in biochemistry, immunology, microbiology, parasitology, pharmacology, pathology, virology and genetics. By 1926, as a result of the expanding interest in the journal and increasing costs related to it, the University of Adelaide (in South Australia) assumed responsibility for the journal. Central to the founding of both the Medical Sciences Club and the Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science were three young professors from the University of Adelaide: John Burton Cleland, Frederic Wood Jones, and Thorburn Brailsford Robertson. The breadth of talent and interests of these three was extraordinary. They shared several traits—they were all inspiring teachers, were interested in diverse aspects of biology and all of them brought to their work an originality of approach and an ability to find new connections, concepts and ideas from their broad knowledge across diverse topics. John Cleland was a noted pathologist and bacteriologist, whose contributions included showing that Dengue fever was transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito and proving that Murray Valley encephalitis (now known to be caused by a flavivirus of the same name) was a unique disorder and not a variety of poliomyelitis. However, he also had major interests (and contributed seminal publications) in the fields of botany, ornithology, wildlife conservation and in anthropology. He had a deep interest in Indigenous Australians, particularly in their health and their use of Australian native plants for foods and drugs. He shared many of these interests with Frederic Wood Jones, who relocated from the United Kingdom to Australia, not only to take up the Elder Chair of Anatomy at the University of Adelaide, but also because the move offered the opportunity to study native Australian fauna (on which topic he was later commissioned to write a handbook, The Mammals of South Australia, which was illustrated with his own drawings). Wood Jones had strong interests in natural history and anthropology and theorized on the evolution of man. Together with John Cleland, he set up the Anthropological Society of South Australia. He was also a vocal campaigner for better treatment of Indigenous Australians. It is usually T. Brailsford Robertson, however, who is credited as the main driver of the development of the Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science. Most accounts of him note his organizational and leadership abilities and his tremendous energy. He was the Managing Editor of the journal from its inception until his death from pneumonia in January 1930, aged only 45. An extra volume (Volume 9) of the journal was included in 1932, which was given over solely to a short biographical account of Robertson, a listing of his published works, and a collection of papers written for the issue by his former students and colleagues from around the globe. (This is the reason why the 2023 volume of Immunology & Cell Biology is Volume 101, even though 2023 is the 100th year of publication and only one volume has otherwise been published each year.) Despite his untimely death, Robertson managed to pack a lot into his years. After his undergraduate study at the University of Adelaide (where he was greatly influenced by the teaching of William Henry Bragg, who later went on to win the Nobel Prize in physics), he completed a PhD at the University of California at Berkeley (in the department led by Jacques Loeb, one of the most famous and influential scientists in America in the early 20th century) and obtained a DSc from the University of Adelaide, all by the age of 24. He remained at Berkeley until 1917, becoming a full professor by that time. His work investigated diverse aspects of mechanisms of growth and longevity in plants, animals and humans, and he gained international repute as a leader in the field of biochemistry. One of his PhD students during this period was Selman Waksman, who later went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of streptomycin. Robertson then briefly held the Chair of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto in Canada, before returning to South Australia in 1919. He was the first Professor of Biochemistry in Australia and, among many achievements, was the first to produce insulin (under license from the University of Toronto) in Australia, which was used in patients at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1923 (within a year of its discovery). In addition, his group greatly refined the process for the extraction of commercial quantities of insulin from bovine pancreases, reducing the cost to patients to nearly 1/1000th of the original amount, and he then shared this process with the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories (CSL), who took over the production of insulin in 1924. His work on growth also led to major contributions to the agricultural industry in Australia and the United States and to his appointment in 1927 as the head of the Division of Animal Nutrition for the Commonwealth Council for Scientific and Industrial Research [CSIR, the forerunner of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)]. T. Brailsford Robertson published 17 papers in the Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science (including one in the first issue, reproduced here) out of a total of over 170 papers and books [including his first book, the intriguingly named The Universe and the Mayonnaise, which aimed to explain biochemistry to children (just think of mayonnaise as an oil in water emulsion with egg acting as the emulsifier)]. An obituary in the journal Biochemistry noted that “Robertson's main service to science was in the realm of ideas … in almost every direction in which his imagination led him he either contributed new conceptions or reoriented prevailing ideas”. After Robertson's death, the editorial activities for the Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science were passed on to Sir Charles J. Martin, the recently retired director of the Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine in London, who had been recruited back to Australia (where he had previously worked from 1891 to 1903) to take over the leadership of the Division of Animal Nutrition at CSIR. Key figures from the foundation of the Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science. (a) Thorburn Brailsford Robertson, 1919. Reproduced from the State Library of South Australia PRG 136/7/12. (b) “The Universe and the Mayonnaise” by T. Brailsford Robertson: biochemistry for children, published 1914. (c) John Burton Cleland, 1920. Courtesy University of Adelaide Library, Special Collections. (d) Frederic Wood-Jones, photographed in 1912. Image courtesy Sutton Archives. Further reading: Insulin manufacture. https://www.adelaide.edu.au/library/special/stories/robertson/insulin-manufacture/ (see “Related Documents” #2 and #3) Jenkin J. ‘Mitchell, Sir Mark Ledingham (1902–1977)’ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mitchell-sir-mark-ledingham-11139/text19839, published first in hardcopy 2000, accessed online 27 February 2023. MacCallum M. ‘Jones, Frederic Wood (1879–1954)’ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/jones-frederic-wood-6872/text11907, published first in hardcopy 1983, accessed online 28 February 2023. Marston HR. (1932) Thorburn Brailsford Robertson. Aust J Exp Biol Med 1932; 9: 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1038/icb.1932.1 Morison P. ‘Martin, Sir Charles James (1866–1955)’ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/martin-sir-charles-james-7501/text13077, published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 27 February 2023. Robertson, ‘Thorburn Brailsford (1884–1930)’ Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/robertson-thorburn-brailsford-8239/text25954, accessed 27 February 2023. Obituary Notice, Thorburn Brailsford Robertson. Biochemistry 1930; 24: 37. Obituary Notice, Thorburn Brailsford Robertson. Med J Aust 1930; 1: 268–270. Rogers GE. ‘Robertson, Thorburn Brailsford (1884–1930)’ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/robertson-thorburn-brailsford-8239/text14425, published first in hardcopy 1988, accessed online 27 February 2023. Southcott RV. ‘Cleland, Sir John Burton (1878–1971)’ Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cleland-sir-john-burton-5679/text9595, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 28 February 2023. Judith Greer: Conceptualization; writing – original draft; writing – review and editing.

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