Believing in an innovative future for immunology

Laureate Professor Peter Doherty AC is one of just 13 Australians to have won the Nobel Prize, which he received (along with Swiss immunologist Professor Rolf Zinkernagel) in the category Physiology or Medicine in 1996, in recognition for discovering the nature of cellular immune defence.

Originally trained as a veterinary scientist, Professor Doherty was drawn to research at an early age.

“I always intended to do research and I intended to do research on diseases in large, domestic food-producing animals,” he says.

“I was inspired by a cousin who had done medical research – he was a medical epidemiologist who discovered the Ross River virus.”

Another early inspiration was Sir Macfarlane Burnet, the Nobel Prize-winning Australian virologist and immunologist who predicted acquired immune tolerance.

“Burnet wrote some very clear and lucid books that I found to be quite inspiring,” Professor Doherty says.

“Then when I did my PhD at Edinburgh, I became intrigued by the antibody-forming cells that we found were going to the brain.”

Professor Doherty realised there were limits to his immunity knowledge, returning to Australia to study further. 

“I went to the Australian National University to discover more about the T cells – and that was that,” he says.

“I would have ended up in the CSIRO lab at Geelong, but made a very big discovery and so spent the rest of my life in medical research.”

Today Professor Doherty spends around nine months of the year based at the University of Melbourne, with much of the remainder of his time spent at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where he holds a Chair in biomedical research.

He is a Campaign Patron for Believe – The Campaign for the University of Melbourne, the most ambitious philanthropic campaign in Melbourne’s history.

“I see the Campaign as very important towards development of the University,” he says.

“It gives the University some flexibility in its operations and ensures it is not dependent on government funding alone.”

Professor Doherty is a champion of scholarships and bursaries for bright students – one of the Campaign’s core targets.

“I would like to see more scholarships,” he says.

“It’s very characteristic of American universities that if you have the ability, your capacity to pay quite frankly doesn’t matter.”

Professor Doherty is now the namesake of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity also the Institute’s new multi-storey building on the corner of Elizabeth and Grattan Streets.

The Doherty Institute houses a new coalition of microbiology and immunology experts to lead the fight against infectious human diseases. It will be a world-leading centre of infectious disease research.

“What’s truly unique about the Doherty Institute is that it’s not just housing the academic department – it will also bring in affiliated bodies such as the state virus diagnostic laboratory, the bacterial diagnostic laboratory, the Royal Melbourne Infectious disease physicians and the WHO (World Health Organization) influenza centre,” Professor Doherty says.

“With the exception of parasitology, we will concentrate the infectious disease experts associated with the University of Melbourne.”

Located in Melbourne’s renowned Parkville Precinct, the Doherty Institute will be part of a healthcare, research and education hub using research to inform and enhance medical practice. In turn, that practice informs further research.

“The aim is that the Institute will give us this mix of the practical, applied and best available basic science,” Professor Doherty says.

“It will be unique for Australia and – quite frankly – most places in the world.”

Professor Doherty remains excited by the prospect of interdisciplinary, collaborative research available at the Institute.

“A lot of the developments that are really novel happen at an interdisciplinary level,” he says.

“If you interface two different areas, you challenge a lot of assumptions, which is very important – particularly in medical science.”

An innovative future awaits infectious disease research in Australia.

Find out more: 

campaign.unimelb.edu.au

The Peter Doherty Institute is an un-incorporated Joint Venture Partnership between the University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health. The Doherty partners and their affiliates gratefully acknowledge the significant funding assistance provided by the Australian Government’s Education Investment Fund and the Victorian Government.