Colin Robert Andrew Laverty (26 May 1937 – 9 February 2013)[1] was an Australian medical practitioner and was the first to confirm (using electronmicroscopy) that the human papillomavirus was much more common in the cervix than previously thought and, in 1978, he suggested that this virus be considered as possibly involved in the causation of cervical cancer.
[citation needed] In the mid-1970s, while working as a Specialist Gynaecological Pathologist at King George V Hospital in Sydney, Dr Laverty developed a special interest in the recognition in the Papanicolaou smear of various female genital tract infections, in particular those due to agents difficult or impossible to culture.
[citation needed] Laverty recognised that cellular abnormalities known as koilocytosis and koilocytotic or "warty" atypia (first reported in the 1950s by Koss and associated with genital warts) were much more common in Pap smears than generally realised and that, surprisingly, in the great majority of cases clinical warts or condylomas were absent, even on careful clinical examination of the entire female genital tract.
This raised the possibility that genital infections due to wart or papilloma virus were much commoner than previously thought, frequently cervical in location and very uncommonly of recognisable warty contour or configuration.
[citation needed] A researcher was employed and an electron microscopic technique was then devised which confirmed the suspicion that human papillomavirus (HPV) particles were present in these abnormal cells, in both cytologic and histologic preparations (Pap smears and cervical biopsies).
Recognition of the frequent and close association of these noncondylomatous HPV-induced changes with high grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) - which was and is accepted as preceding life-threatening invasive cancer - led Dr Laverty to also suggest in 1978 the investigation of the possible role of HPV in genital tract carcinogenesis.
In 1982, he founded Dr Colin Laverty and Associates, a private pathology practice which provided specialised services in gynaecological cytology and histopathology.
[citation needed] Over many years, Laverty lectured widely (often as an invited speaker) in Australia and overseas on the significance of HPV infection and on a range of gynaecological cytology and Pap smear screening issues.
Over decades, Colin & Elizabeth Laverty have been major art collectors and supporters of young, mid-career and established Australian artists, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.
Overall 167 works by 57 different Indigenous artists and 10 different non-Indigenous artists have been lent to exhibitions of both Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australian art in St Petersburg, Russia; Basel, Switzerland; Hannover, Düsseldorf, Herford and Cologne, Germany; Oslo, Norway; London, England; Marseilles, France; Odense and Humlebaek, Denmark; Washington D.C. and New Hampshire, U.S.A.; Dunedin, Christchurch and New Plymouth, New Zealand; Osaka and Tokyo, Japan; and Ghent, Belgium.
In 2011, five 1971–72 Papunya boards were lent to the National Gallery of Victoria for the exhibition Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art, and these paintings are currently on loan at Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.
From 20 June - 23 August 1998, selected works from the Laverty Collection were exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney at the request of the then co-directors Bernice Murphy and Leon Paroissien.
Beyond Sacred: Recent painting from Australia’s remote Aboriginal communities, a book compiled by Colin Laverty and designed by Jane Kleimeyer was published in May 2008.
In 1983/84 Laverty conceived, curated and wrote the catalogue for a touring exhibition of the work of 21 artists active in this field of animal and sporting painting in colonial times in Australia.
He was a Committee member of the very successful Western Desert Dialysis Appeal held in 2000 in conjunction with auctioneers Sotheby’s Australia at the Art Gallery of NSW.
The more than one million dollars raised at this auction has enabled renal dialysis to occur at very remote Kintore (Walungurru) in the Western desert in the south of the Northern Territory.
The money raised also supports social workers, interpreters and health care liaison staff both in remote communities and in association with the renal unit in Alice Springs.
The Lavertys have travelled repeatedly over the last 25 years to central and northern Australia and have had a long association with the community-owned art centres at more than 20 remote Aboriginal communities.