 When he returned to Australia, he conducted research at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research under director Frank Macfarlane Burnet and was involved in the establishment of the Biochemistry and Biophysics Research Unit with Henry Holden.At the Hall Institute he initially worked on the viruses that cause influenza and Murray Valley encephalitis.He was the first to establish that influenza is an RNA virus and was awarded his DSc by the University of Sydney in 1959.