Sir Francis Richard Fraser (14 February 1885 – 2 October 1964) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Sir Thomas Richard Fraser, the Professor of Materia Medica at the University of Edinburgh and member of the Royal Society, and Susanna Margaret Duncan.
By chance, due to an illness of his father's, Fraser was asked to host a dinner in honor of Abraham Flexner.
Flexner convinced Fraser to go to the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research in the United States for his postgraduate work.
While in the United States, Fraser worked on poliomyelitis and electrocardiographs with Rufus Cole, Simon Flexner and Alfred E. Cohn at the Rockefeller.
At the close of World War II, Fraser resigned from Hammersmith to undertake the establishment of a British Postgraduate Medical Federation as its first director.