Barrie Marmion

Barrie Marmion was born in 1920 in Alverstoke, Hampshire, to Joseph, a pharmacist, and Melita "Millie" Marmion. He began studying medicine at University College London in 1939 and, after a brief secondment to the Welsh National School of Medicine because of the war, graduated in 1944.[1]

Marmion began his medical career at the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) as a trainee in pathology; he was seconded in this position to Cambridge and Colindale, working in the virus reference laboratory at the latter.[1] In 1951, he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship allowing him to travel to Melbourne, Australia, and work at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research,[2] where he studied Murray Valley encephalitis virus and respiratory viruses alongside Macfarlane Burnet. Marmion returned to the UK in 1952, joining Michael Stoker's Q fever research group at Cambridge University. He moved to Leeds as the head of the new PHLS virus laboratory in 1955.[1] At Leeds, he published the first description of Q fever endocarditis and co-authored a paper with Leonard Hayflick identifying the cause of Mycoplasma pneumonia.[3]

Marmion returned to Melbourne in 1963 as the Foundation Professor of Microbiology at the newly established Monash University Medical School.[3] At Monash, he established the microbiology curriculum for medical students while researching Mycoplasma antigens and hepatitis A.[2][3] He left Australia for the UK again in 1968 after accepting a role as the Robert Irvine Chair of Bacteriology at the University of Edinburgh.[3] Shortly after he arrived in Edinburgh, he was involved in investigating an outbreak of hepatitis B in the local dialysis unit; he discovered that the high mortality was due to concurrent hepatitis C infection. This investigation laid the groundwork for the principles of bloodborne virus control that would later be applied to HIV.[1]

In 1979, Marmion moved to Australia once again, this time as the senior director of medical virology at the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science in Adelaide.[4] He expanded the institute's diagnostic laboratory service and led a research group that was, at the time, a leader in virology research in Australia.[1] Marmion's main research interest at this stage was Q fever; he spearheaded the development of Q-Vax, the first vaccine against Coxiella burnetii, the bacteria that causes Q fever.[5][6] He observed that Q fever led to a post-viral illness and hypothesised that it could cause chronic fatigue syndrome.[3]

Marmion was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1994[7] and received the Gold Medal of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia. He chaired Australia's National Health and Medical Research Council for many years[1] and served as president of the Australian Society for Microbiology from 1984 to 1986.[2] He was a life member of the American Society for Rickettsiology and had a subspecies of Rickettsia honei, Rickettsia honei var. marmionii, named after him.[1]