Professor David J Kemp has made a major contribution to the development of molecular biology in Australia. An outstanding aspect is his inventive flair in devising or adapting new techniques and approaches that have proved to be of general utility. These are exemplified by the Northern blotting technique for detecting mRNA, immunoscreening approaches for detecting recombinant proteins and a number of contributions to polymerase chain reaction methodology. Using such approaches he has made particularly important contributions to our understanding of the biology of malaria. He has played a major role in defining malaria antigens and their antigenic diversity, which has implications for vaccines, and he has been central to the development of knowledge on the malaria genome.