In 1953, the complex became the Animal Research Institute. Immunologist and Nobel Laureate Peter C. Doherty worked at Yeerongpilly in the 1960s, involved in diagnostic veterinary pathology and a project on the epidemiology of bovine leptospirosis. A national campaign to eradicate bovine brucellosis and tuberculosis (BTEC) was supported by a set of laboratories built on the site in the 1970s. The investigation of Hendra virus, first described after an outbreak at a Brisbane suburb in 1994, included researchers at Yeerongpilly.
