Join Andreas Suhrbier aboard the Australian icebreaker Aurora Australis as he investigates the fauna and flora of the small subantarctic Macquarie Island, pristine home to Rockhopper, Royal, and King Penguins as well as a large population of elephant seals. This is no pleasure cruise: Suhrbier and his team study viruses transmitted by seabird ticks and seal lice. Remote Macquarie Island (some 1,300 miles south of the Australian mainland) is the perfect wilderness laboratory to observe the evolution of viruses that are spread by migratory and far-ranging birds and mammals. Suhrbier, a biologist at the Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane, is also associated with the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council. He is the author of over 130 scientific publications and the inventor of 17 patents in the fields of virology, immunology, and cancer therapeutics.
