Brian Setchell

Brian Setchell received his Bachelor of Veterinary Science from the University of Sydney in 1953.  He worked as a Veterinary Research Officer for the NSW Department of Agriculture from 1953 to 1955 then again from 1957 to 1962, having undertaken a Scholarship in Veterinary Science at the Walter and Eliza Hall in the intervening years.  He received his PhD in 1969 from the University of Cambridge, School of Veterinary Medicine for his studies on the 'Effect of Insulin Hypoglycaemia on Cerebral Metabolism'.  His career has spanned periods as a Research Scientist at the CSIRO Division of Animal Physiology (Prospect, NSW) where he collaborated with Geoffrey Waites and Hans Lindner on testicular physiology, biochemistry and endocrinology and the ARC Institute of Animal Physiology, Babraham Cambridge, with Jim Linzell, where he devised a method for perfusing the isolated testis of rams.  From 1982 to 1996, Brian was Professor of Animal Sciences at the University of Adelaide during which time he had the first of three Visiting Professorships at the Institute of Histology and General Embryology, University of Rome, La Sapienza.

In 1995, he was Visiting Fellow, Clare Hall Cambridge, where he worked with Azim Surani at the Wellcome/CRC Institute on paternal effects on embryo development.
In 1998 and 2000, he received Nobel and STINT Fellowships at Karolinska Hospital Pediatric Endocrinology Unit.  Brian is presently an Emeritus Professor at the University of Adelaide, in the Department of Anatomical Sciences.  His publications include “The Mammalian Testis” (1978), “Male Reproduction” (1984) and translations of Regnier de Graaf’s two books (1668 and 1672) on anatomy of male and female reproductive organs and Enrico Sertoli’s article describing the cells now bearing his name.  Brian has written 75 invited reviews/book chapters, 146 original articles and 208 abstracts presented at scientific meetings on testis and epididymis, 24 original articles on metabolism in other organs and 5 articles on history of reproductive biology.  He has been involved with the British Andrology Society and as a Committee Member with Geoffrey Waites, John Pryor and Bill Hendry, organized the inaugural meeting of the Society in 1979.  Brian was also an organizer of the 1982 meeting at the ARC Institute of Animal Physiology.