The scientific life of the Australian biologist Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet isexamined against the context of the development of an independent Australianscientific identity over the course of the twentieth century. Born in 1899 Burnetwas part of a generation of Australians who needed to travel abroad to gainresearch credentials, but is atypical in that he became one of the first to deliberatelyreturn after obtaining his PhD to pursue an active research career. He played apivotal role in putting Australian medical research on the world’s map, boththrough his own significant research in the fields of animal virology andimmunology, and as director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for MedicalResearch (WEHI), which under his leadership gained an international reputationfor excellence. This paper attempts to tease out the relationships between Burnet,WEHI, and Australia and to place Burnet’s life and work in their institutional andnational contexts.