More than 30 years ago while studying to be a veterinarian, Chris Goodnow became fascinated with autoimmune diseases.
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The interest was cemented when his mother was diagnosed with lupus.
''It didn't matter what the species was, it was always something wrong with the immune system,'' Professor Goodnow said.
Last night the Australian National University medical researcher received an $80,000 prize to help him continue his investigations into why the ''immune system goes rogue attacking our own body''.
''We don't really understand the immune system and so we don't understand why it goes wrong and that was like a red flag to a bull for me. It's what I've been researching most of my research career right through from university days,'' he said.
There are more than 100 autoimmune diseases and the number of people diagnosed is rising, for no known reason.
About one million Australians have rogue cells that attack their own body causing diseases such as lupus, type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
The 52-year-old believes there is a link between lymphoma cancers and autoimmune diseases and the prize will allow him to test that theory.
''The hypothesis is that it shares some of the same roots as cancer and that's what we are going to test with the funds from the award,'' he said.
''The root cause, why the immune system is attacking in the first place, that's really what we are setting out to test.''
Professor Goodnow and his team will collect white blood cells from people who have lupus and Sjo¨gren's syndrome and use massively parallel sequencing technology to map anomalies.
''We'll be able to use this technology to sequence the DNA of thousands and millions of white blood cells and even if there is one cell in 10,000 or one cell in 100,000 where the key part of the genetic code has gone array, we'll be able to pick that up,'' he said.
Without the $80,000 prize, Professor Goodnow would have to apply for funding to pay for the sequencing technology, which could take years.
GlaxoSmithKline Australia medical director Andrew Yates presented the award at the Melbourne Museum.
''We hope this achievement will inspire other researchers to continue their efforts to better understand human health and patient care,'' Dr Yates said.
GlaxoSmithKline is a pharmaceutical company and its annual award for research excellence is in its 32nd year. The $80,000 award recognises outstanding achievement in medical research. It is judged by an independent panel of past winners and Australian researchers.
