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Battling illness, Sutherland still works to save lives from stings and bites

KERRY O'BRIEN: To many Australians, the name Struan Sutherland is synonymous with the development of an anti-venom for the funnel web spider.

In a distinguished scientific career, his fixation with deadly Australian animals and the toxins they produce has helped saved many lives.

But now Struan Sutherland is battling an illness which is fast bringing his brilliant career to an end.

And while he's reconciled that death isn't far away, there is still much important work to do.

Geoff Hutchison reports on one man's extraordinary race against time.

PROFESSOR JAMES ANGUS, University of Melbourne: Struan is a very tough man on himself and others around him.

When he gets an idea in his head that he believes is worthwhile, he'll follow it right through to the end.

I think that is his legacy also to Australia -- that without him, we may not have a safer -- a society that we take for granted when we walk in the bush.

WENDY BURNSIDE: Professor Sutherland is larger than life in our family. A lot of people probably have no idea who he is.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: For more than 30 years, he's been one of Australia's most eminent and controversial scientists, a man whose interest in things that bite and sting and kill became almost an obsession.

And if it's possible, that obsession grows not by the day, but by the hour.

For Professor Struan Sutherland is dying of what he calls "a posh form of Parkinson's disease".

PROFESSOR STRUAN SUTHERLAND, Medical Scientist: It's a rare form that doesn't respond to treatment and goes a bit faster than normal Parkinson's disease, but I accept that and it's nice to know what was wrong with me.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: Wendy and Julia Burnside had no reason to know of Struan Sutherland until this Sydney funnel-web spider bit Julia on the hand when she was just eight months old.

The poison produced devastating symptoms.

WENDY BURNSIDE: They started giving her anti-venom, at which stage she went into heart failure, as it turned out later, and her lungs were filling up with fluid and they were sort of weighing up whether it was safe to keep giving it, but they did.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: The anti-venom saved her life and after two days in intensive care, Julia went home.

Almost a generation before, a similar case but with no happy ending provided the trigger for Struan Sutherland to re-open research which had baffled and beaten other scientists.

PROFESSOR STRUAN SUTHERLAND: It had been closed down and I read a case report of a little girl that had been bitten by a funnel-web in her slipper and she was dead in 15 minutes and I thought "That's a bit rough".



GEOFF HUTCHINSON: By the late 1970s, the Sydney funnel-web spider seemed to be making arachnophobic nightmares come true.

There were deaths and sensational headlines, but by 1981, after 14 years of trying, Struan Sutherland and his team found success.

(Archival footage) PROFESSOR STRUAN SUTHERLAND: Now what the main toxin from the funnel-web venom does is attack this nerve so that thousands of impulses come down the nerve and as a result you get great muscle spasm.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: But there were frustrations, too.

His employer at the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories did not consider venom research a high priority, or cost effective.

As the years went on, Struan Sutherland engaged in bitter arguments with bureaucrats he believed simply didn't understand.

You were doing this very important work and yet the money wasn't there and often the staff wasn't there and then the equipment wasn't there.

PROFESSOR STRUAN SUTHERLAND: There was plenty of money there. It was personal vendetta, I think.


PROFESSOR STRUAN SUTHERLAND: Well, I think jealousy might have come in, but it seems -- looking back, it seems a very bad thing that the work was curtailed, 'cause the value of the work was far more important than my feelings or their feelings or their pride.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: Sutherland was thrown a lifeline by Professor James Angus at the University of Melbourne.

PROFESSOR JAMES ANGUS: We can't afford to do everything that we'd like to do and if the research director says to Struan, "I'm sorry, we think your research has to shut down," Struan, in his tenacious way, had to find other opportunities.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: Struan Sutherland set up the Australian Venom Research Unit at the University of Melbourne in 1994.

His illness has forced him to retire as its director, but the work goes on.

Be it pulling a coastal taipan out of the freezer to study its venom, or learning about the poison of redback spiders recently discovered in Japan, the Sutherland legacy endures.

DR KEN WINKEL, Research Unit Director: He's very particular about his science, has a phenomenal memory.

Um, but he's also got a great sense of humour and he's very much one to educate his fellow workers and that every day is a learning experience with Struan and that's been a real privilege.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: Do you think you'll be dead in 12 months?

PROFESSOR STRUAN SUTHERLAND: Yes. I was told I'd be dead 12 mont hs ago anyway, so I'm lucky with having the extra time.

I've paid my gas bill. Everything's in order.

Life is excellent.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: Struan tires easily. He can no longer hand write his own notes.

His tongue, he says feels like concrete and there's obvious frustration at the ever-widening gulf between a head full of ideas and the ability to express them.

PROFESSOR STRUAN SUTHERLAND: There's a lot of stuff in my head that is not written down and some of it can save lives.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: So the work continues.

His dining room table is covered with chapters on three books he is coauthoring and while the clock ticks on, Struan Sutherland is preparing answers to questions doctors and researchers will need to ask when he's no longer here.

PROFESSOR JAMES ANGUS: Already we've seen his autobiography, he's working on the very large textbook on Australian animal toxins with Dr James Tibbles.

This will be wonderful books for him to leave behind.

They've been brought right up to date and for that reason, they're extraordinarily important scientifically for Australia.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: And for Wendy and Julia Burnside, this driven and curious man will always be in their hearts.

WENDY BURNSIDE: As I say, Dr Sutherland keeps in touch with her.

He writes her birthday cards and he's sent her books and he autographs the books when he sends them to her.

GEOFF HUTCHINSON: How would you like to be remembered, Struan?

PROFESSOR STRUAN SUTHERLAND: With affection. It's nice how things work out.

When I get home, although I walk like a marionette, a toddle along the beach is in order.

Life is excellent.


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