Mackay, Ian Reay (1922 - 2020)

Summary

Ian Mackay was a an immunologist who made significant contributions in the field of autoimmunology. His research led to new immunosuppressant treatments for conditions such as autoimmune hepatitis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjögren's Syndrome. From 1963 to 1987 he Head of the Clinical Research Unit of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Among his colleagues at the Institute were Macfarlane Burnet, with whom he wrote the landmark The autoimmune diseases (1963), Ian Wood and Gustav Nossal.

Details

"Ian Reay Mackay is distinguished for contributions to clinical immunology, particularly autoimmune disease. Mackay wrote the first text (1963), with F. M. Burnet, on the nature of autoimmune disease. He identified autoimmunity as one cause of chronic hepatitis (1956) and established diagnostic serological assays, and showed that corticosteroid and immunosuppressive drugs reversed autoimmune inflammation in the liver (1957-1968). Mackay also described primary biliary cirrhosis as an autoimmune disease (1958) and his laboratory identified the autoantigenic mitochondrial polypeptides (1985) and the nuclear gene coding for the major polypeptide (1987), now recognized as part of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex. His discoveries provided important insights into liver disease and autoimmunity in general." [from https://www.science.org.au/profile/ian-mackay 12/6/2025].

Chronology

1948 - 1949

Career position - Medical Officer, Australian Military Mission, Berlin, Germany

1949 - 1950

Career position - Medical Officer, Australia House, London

1952 - 1954

Career position - Research Fellow, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.

1955 - 1963

Career position - Assistant Physician, Clinical Research Unit, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in association with the Royal Melbourne Hospital

1963 - 1987

Career position - Head, Clinical Research Unit Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in association with the Royal Melbourne Hospital

1966

Award - Eric Susman Prize, Royal Australasian College of Physicians

1974

Award - Research Prize, British Medical Association

1981

Award - Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to medical research

1983 - 1987

Career position - Chairman, AIDS Committee, Health Commission Victoria

1987

Life event - Retired

1987 - 1996

Career position - Principal Scientist, Centre for Molecular Biology and Medicine, Monash University

1991 - 2020

Award - Fellow, Australian Academy of Science

1992

Award - Distinguished Researcher Prize, Gastroenterological Society of Australia

1999 -

Career position - Honorary Professorial Fellow, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University

2001

Award - Centenary Medal for service to Australian society and science in biochemistry and molecular biology

2015

Award - General History Award (shared with Warwick Anderson) for Intolerant bodies, New South Wales Premier's History Awards

Related entries

Published resources

Books

• Anderson, Warwick and Mackay, Ian R., Intolerant bodies: a short history of autoimmunity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 241 pp. Details

Journal Articles

• Anderson, Warwick and Hunter, Cecily, ''Wars have an overflow on everything': Interview with Ian R, MacKay and Patricia MacKay', Health and History, 15 (1) (2013), 104-17. Details
• Anderson, Warwick and Mackay, Ian R., 'Fashioning the Immunological Self: the Biological Individuality of F. Macfarlane Burnet', Journal of the History of Biology, 47 (1) (2014), 147-75. Details
• Anon, 'Ian Reay MacKay: MBBS 1945, MD 1953 1922 - 2020', Chiron, 2020 (2020), 64, https://medicine.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/3492527/Chiron-2020.pdf. Details
• Anon, 'Ian Reay Mackay AM FAA FRACP FRCP FRCPA 22 March 1922 to24 March 2020', Newsletter, Australian Academy of Science, 136 (2020), 14. https://www.science.org.au/files/userfiles/events/newsletters/136/academy-newsletter-136-mar2020.pdf. Details
• Bogdanos, Dimitros P., 'Obituary for Professor Ian Reay Mackay (1922 - 2020): a pioneer autoimmunologist', Mediterranean journal of rheumatology, 31 (1) (2020), 98-9, https://doi.org/10.31138/mjr.31.1.98. Details
• Mackay, I. R., 'The 'Burnet Era' of Immunology: Origins and Influence', Immunology and Cell Biology, 69 (5) (1991), 301-305. Details
• Mackay, I. R., 'Burnet Oration: Auto-immunity, Paradigms of Burnet and Complexities of Today', Immunology and Cell Biology, 70 (1992), 159-171. Details
• Roberts-Thomson, Peter J.; Jackson, Michael W.; and Gordon, Thomas P., 'A Seminal Monograph: Mackay and Burnet's Autoimmune Diseases', Medical Journal of Australia, 196 (1) (2012), 74-6. Details
• Whittingham, Senga, Rowley, Merrill J., Gershwin, M. Eric, 'A tribute to an outstanding immunologist - Ian Reay Mackay', Journal of autoimmunology, 31 (3) (2008), 197-200, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aut.2008.04.004. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q5982670. Details
• 'Mackay, Ian Reay (1922-)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-1475639. Details

Resource Sections

• MacKay, Ian, 'Sir Ian Jeffreys Wood b. 5 February 1903 d. 1 September 1986 Kt.(1976), MBE (1942), MB BS Melb (1927), MD,(1929), MRCP (1932), FRACP (1938) FRCP(1944)', in Inspiring physicians, Royal College of Physicians, London, 2019. https://history.rcp.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/sir-ian-jeffreys-wood. Details

See also

• Crawford, Anne, Let there be light: 100 years of discovery at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press, 2016), 149 pp. Details