[16] He advised Frank to invest in Mac's education and he won a full scholarship to board and study at Geelong College,[14] one of Victoria's most exclusive private schools.

[17] He did not enjoy his time there among the scions of the ruling upper class; while most of his peers were brash and sports-oriented, Burnet was bookish and not athletically inclined, and found his fellow students to be arrogant and boorish.

[29] His fellow graduates included Ian Wark, Kate Campbell, Jean Macnamara, Rupert Willis and Roy Cameron, who became distinguished scientists in their own right.

[20][33] During the transition period he worked as a pathology registrar at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and also prepared for his Doctor of Medicine examinations, late in 1923.

The new director of the Institute, Charles Kellaway, wanted to increase the activities of the organisation to not only support hospital operations but have separate research groups in physiology, microbiology and biochemistry that would also do independent studies.

[42] He was awarded the Beit Memorial Fellowship by the Lister Institute in 1926; this gave him enough money for him to resign his curator position and he began full-time research on bacteriophages.

[42] For this work he received a Ph.D. from the University of London in 1928 under the direction of Professor J. C. G. Ledingham and was invited to write a chapter on bacteriophages for the Medical Research Council's System of Bacteriology.

In 1929, Burnet and his graduate assistant Margot McKie wrote a paper suggesting that bacteriophages could exist as a stable non-infectious form that multiplies with the bacterial host.

[46][51] Their pioneering description of lysogeny was not accepted until much later, and was crucial to the work of Max Delbrück, Alfred Hershey and Salvador Luria on the replication mechanism and genetics of viruses, for which they were awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

[57] During the time he worked on Q fever with Australian scientist E.H. Derrick, the causative organism of which was named Coxiella burnetii in Burnet's honour, he became the first person to acquire the disease in the laboratory.

[68] Unlike his predecessor, who valued a broad gamut of research activities, Burnet was of the opinion that the Institute could not make a significant impact at global level in this way, and he pursued a policy of focusing all effort into one area at a time.

[72] On the other hand, Burnet was vigorous in obtaining funding for the Hall Institute from government bodies, resorting to the bluff of feigning interest in moving overseas to secure continued strong backing.

[77] Virologists including Alick Isaacs, Gordon Ada, John Cairns, Stephen Fazekas de St. Groth, and Frank Fenner made significant contributions on Murray Valley encephalitis, myxomatosis, poliomyelitis, poxviruses, herpes and influenza.

[91] Using the concept of self, Burnet introduced a hypothesis about the situation where the body failed to make antibodies to its own components (autoimmunity) and by extension the idea of immune tolerance.

[94] Burnet and Medawar were co-recipients of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work, as it provided the experimental basis for inducing immune tolerance,[95] thereby allowing the transplantation of solid organs.

[102] In 1956 he became interested in Niels Kaj Jerne's natural selection hypothesis,[103] which described a mechanism for immune response based on an earlier theory of Nobel-winning immunologist Paul Ehrlich.

[118] Despite this, Burnet believed that a world class research body needed to be small enough that one person could effectively run it, and maintained tight control over its activities throughout his leadership.

[120] He continued to be active in the laboratory until his retirement in 1965, although his experimental time began to decrease as the operations became increasingly focused on immunology; Burnet's work in this area had been mostly theoretical.

[81] However, despite making many appearances on radio and television, he never became at ease with interviews and had to be selective with outreach engagements due to the many invitations he received, and tended to accept those that had the potential to promote the Institute.

[124] Over time, he began to increase his activism, as he felt more confident that he would be able to make an impact as his reputation grew, especially after winning the Nobel Prize, and even more so after his retirement from the directorship of the Institute.

[127] Declassified files from this committee show that Burnet made the recommendation that Australia pursue development of chemical and biological weapons to target the food stocks of "Indonesia and other "overpopulated" countries of South-East Asia" and spread infectious diseases.

He also wanted to use the Academy to increase the involvement of the eminent scientists of Australia in training and motivating the next generation,[146] but these initiatives were not successful due to a lack of concrete method.

Burnet served in the role for three years and helped start it on a path of steady growth, although he was unable to use it as a personal platform to espouse the importance of human biology.

The books strongly polarised the scientific community,[164] and one reviewer described his ideas of sociobiology as "extreme" and giving "a dismal, unappealing view of humanity".

[165] In Endurance of Life, he also called for society to accept euthanasia of ill older people, repeat violent criminals, and most controversially, abortion of pregnancies likely to result in disabled children, and infanticide of handicapped newborns.

He then moved into Ormond College for company, and resumed beetle collecting, but for a year after her death, Burnet tried to alleviate his grief by writing mock letters to her once a week.

As a result of the success of the book,[172] in early 1983, Burnet was appointed to the 70-person Australian Advisory Council of Elders to offer counsel to policymakers, but the group folded after several members became too frail or died.

[46][177] He was given a state funeral by the government of Australia; many of his distinguished colleagues from the Hall Institute such as Nossal and Fenner were pall-bearers,[178] and he was buried near his paternal grandparents after a private family service at Tower Hill cemetery in Koroit, near Port Fairy.

The centenary of his birth was celebrated in Australia in 1999; a statue of him was erected in Franklin Street, Traralgon;[195] and several events were held in his honour including the release of a new edition of his biography by Oxford University Press.

[197] In spite of his sometimes controversial ideas on science and humanity, Peter C. Doherty has noted that "Burnet's reputation is secure in his achievements as an experimentalist, a theoretician and a leader of the Australian scientific community.