[1] Frazer and Jian Zhou developed and patented the basic technology behind the HPV vaccine against cervical cancer at the University of Queensland.

In 1981 he discovered that the immunodeficiency afflicting homosexuals in San Francisco was also found in the gay men in his hepatitis B study, and in 1984 helped to confirm that HIV was a cause.

[10] During this time Frazer also taught at the university and ran diagnostic tests for the Princess Alexandra Hospital and[4] received his Doctor of Medicine qualification in 1988.

[11] On a 1989 sabbatical he met virologist Jian Zhou, and the two considered the problem of developing a vaccine for HPV – a virus that cannot be cultured without living tissue.

[12] Frazer convinced Zhou to join him, and in 1990 they began to use molecular biology to synthesize particles in vitro that could mimic the virus.

To finance clinical trials, Australian medical company CSL, and later Merck, were sold partial patents.

7,476,389, titled "Papilloma Virus Vaccines", was granted to co-inventors Ian Frazer and Jian Zhou (posthumously) on 13 January 2009.

[22] It has been suggested that one way to bring cheaper equivalent vaccines to market is to mandate a similar induced immune response.

[29] (Australia's government had the world's most generous coverage for the drug, though it is the nation with the lowest cervical cancer mortality.

[46] Frazer is the inaugural holder of the Queensland Government Smart State premier's fellowship, worth $2.5 million over 5 years.

He teaches immunology to undergraduates and graduate students at the University of Queensland, is Cancer Council Australia president,[47] Chairman of the ACRF's Medical Research Advisory Committee, and advises the WHO and the Gates Foundation on papillomavirus vaccines.