Peter Doherty

Professor Peter Doherty shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology for Medicine in 1996 with Swiss colleague Rolf Zinkernagel, for their discovery of how the immune system recognises virus infected cells.

He was Australian of the Year in 1997, and since then has gone in to bat for evidence-based reality, relating to areas as diverse as childhood vaccination, global hunger and anthropogenic climate change.

Professor Doherty’s research is mainly in the area of defence against viruses. He regularly devotes time to delivering public lectures, writing articles for newspapers and magazines and participating in radio discussions. He has so far published 6 “lay” books on science, his latest The Incidental Tourist.

Professor Doherty graduated from the University of Queensland in Veterinary Science and became a veterinary officer. Moving to Scotland, he received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh Medical School. Professor Doherty is the first person with a veterinary qualification to win a Nobel Prize.