Wes Whitten was born on 1 August 1918 in Macksville, New South Wales and was educated at the University of Sydney (BVSc (hons) 1939, BSc 1941, DSc 1962). His positions included the Walter and Eliza Hall Fellow in Veterinary Science 1940-41; Australian Army Veterinary Corps and Australian Army Service Corps Captain 1941-45; Research Officer, CSIRO 1946-49; Director of Animal Breeding and Fellow, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University 1950-61; Assistant Director (Endocrine Products), National Biological Standards Laboratory, Canberra 1961-66; Staff Scientist, The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine, USA 1966-69, Senior Staff Scientist 1969-80, Assistant Director (Research) 1971-72; Research Associate, Department of Zoology, University of Tasmania 1980-89; Associated Scientist, CSIRO Wildlife and Associate, Cooperative Research Centre for Biological Control of Vertebrate Pest Populations. He had a wide variety of professional interests including animal breeding for scientific research, cloning and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Whitten died on 24 May 2010.