Sir Gustav Victor Joseph Nossal (born 4 June 1931) is an Austrian-born Australian research biologist. He is famous for his contributions to the fields of antibody formation and immunological tolerance.
Early life and education
Nossal's family was from Vienna, Austria to a non-religious family of Ashkenazi Jewish extract. He was born four weeks prematurely in Bad Ischl while his mother was on holiday. His family left their home town of Vienna for Australia in 1939 following Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria. Through his grandparents, he had patrilineal Austrian-Jewish ancestry so he was considered Jewish, he was at risk of being sent to concentration camps. In an interview with Adam Spencer, Nossal noted that his father was not a practicing Jew but his ethnicity (Ashkenazi Jewish) made him as such, even though he had been baptised a Roman Catholic as a child. Nossal remarked that his father "therefore thought that he would be somewhat protected from the Holocaust-type predicament. Of course, he hadn't properly read Mein Kampf. It was all spelt out there: if your four grandparents were Jewish, then you were Jewish." He was baptised and remains a practising Roman Catholic.
Nossal showed interest in medicine and wanted to become a doctor since the age of seven. When he first attended school in Australia, Nossal spoke no English
but he graduated from St Aloysius' College in 1947
as the dux of the college. In 1948, he entered the Sydney Medical School, graduating later with first-class honours from the University of Sydney. At the age of 26, he left his job in Sydney and moved to Melbourne to work with Macfarlane Burnet in medical science at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and gained his PhD degree at the University of Melbourne in 1960.
Religious beliefs
On describing his views on religion Nossal said: