Papers of Dr Robert Freeman: Malaria Vaccine Research at Wellcome Trust Research Laboratories, Beckenham, Kent

The following is an interim description which may change when detailed cataloguing takes place in future.

The collection comprises material relating to Dr Robert R. Freeman's research work on malaria vaccines whilst a Senior Scientist at the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratories in Beckenham, Kent, in the 1980s. Includes correspondence, off-prints, methods book and method notes, 35mm lecture slides and autoradiographs. He particularly worked on producing a surface antigen of plasmodium falciparum merozoites.

c.1977-1987

1 transfer box

Presented to the library at Wellcome Collection by Mrs Suzanne Freeman, 24/07/2014, in association with and on behalf of R R Freeman's mother, Mrs Effie Freeman.

Robert Rowe Freeman was born in Adelaide, Australia, 1951. He was educated at the Prince Alfred College, Adelaide and The Flinders University of South Australia.

He first became interested in malaria in the 1970s when his wife Suzanne became ill with it. Robert was brought over from Australia by the Wellcome Foundation in the 1980s to work on malaria vaccines. At the time he was based in the Department of Microbiology, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, where he had been since 1974.

He was a Senior Scientist, and worked with Anthony A. Holder, in the Department of Molecular Biology at the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratories, Beckenham, Kent. In 1981 he was appointed joint leader of the Malaria Immunity Programme.

Freeman was a pacifist and an official Conscientious Objector (in Australia) against the war in Vietnam.

Robert Freeman died 15 December 1999. He took his own life after a long struggle with depression.

This collection is currently uncatalogued and cannot be ordered online. Requests to view uncatalogued material are considered on a case by case basis. Please contact collections@wellcomecollection.org for more details.