Vale: Tony Della-Porta
Margery Kennet , Neil Walls and Ian MacreadieMicrobiology Australia 43(4) 200-200 https://doi.org/10.1071/MA22047
Published: 29 September 2022
© 2022 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the ASM. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
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Tony Della-Porta has passed away unexpectedly while on holiday overseas.
Tony was educated at the University of Sydney 1965–1969 (BSc(Hon)) and Monash University 1970–1972 (PhD) working on Arboviruses with Professor Ed Westaway. He worked at CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory from 1972 to 2003 and was Deputy Head for 6 years.
Tony served on the ASM Victorian Branch from the mid-1970s. He was on the National Committee from 1975 to 1977 in his role of chairman of the Victorian State Committee. In the mid-1990s he was 2nd Chair of the ASM Standing Committee on Microbiological Safety.
Tony was an internationally recognised expert in biosecurity, biocontainment and biological safety. After leaving CSIRO he founded his own company Bio2IC and was involved in investigations in Singapore and Taiwan associated with SARS incidents. Many of us have benefited from training courses run by Tony especially those related to higher levels of laboratory containment.
Tony was instrumental in the Association of Biosecurity for Australia and New Zealand (ABSANZ). In 2007, Tony, along with a number of other founding members, was given the brief by the Australian Society of Microbiology to develop draft terms of reference for a group to bring together and share knowledge about biosafety and biosecurity both in Australia and in New Zealand. In 2010 Tony became the Chair of the newly formed Association of Biosafety for Australia and New Zealand (registered with ASIC 23 November 2010). He led ABSANZ from this date for 4 years before handing the reins to Neil Walls in 2014.
Tony continued to share his knowledge with ABSANZ members and enjoyed the recent ABSANZ conference in Adelaide where he caught up with many old friends and contributed to the discussions in many of the sessions. ABSANZ already has in place a regular ‘Tony Della-Porta Oration’ in recognition of Tony’s key contribution to our association. He will be greatly missed by us all.
Tony made many contributions to Microbiology Australia and was one of the original members of the editorial board formed in 1995 under the chairmanship of Dr Dick Groot-Obbink, to provide ASM members with a new-look journal, Microbiology Australia, edited by Joan Eyles. Tony was a very active contributor to the journal, guest-editing six issues on Wildlife Diseases (with John Mackenzie, May 1996), Aquaculture (May 1997), Importation of Agricultural Diseases (July 2001), Bioterrorism – Australia’s response (May 2003), Advances in Diagnostic Techniques/Point of Care Testing (May 2006) and Biomanagement and Risk Assessment (May 2008). The ASM community express their condolences to his wife Betty, his daughter Demi, and his son James.
