Nobel winner is Handbury Lecture guest
8 May 2008
The Handbury Lecture will indeed be a special event this year, with guest speaker Australian Nobel Prize Winner and 1997 Australian of the Year Professor Peter Doherty speaking at the annual event at the Hamilton Base Hospital.
Laureate Professor Doherty, currently based at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne, will address the ninth Handbury Lecture at the HBH Education Centre on Wednesday May 28, on “Plagues, Pestilence and Influenza”.
Western District Health Service Chief Executive Officer Mr Jim Fletcher said Professor Peter Doherty shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1996 with Swiss colleague Rolf Zinkernagel, for their discovery of how the immune system recognises virus infected cells.
Mr Fletcher said Western District Health Service was extraordinarily lucky that a Laureate Professor and former Australian of the Year was coming to Hamilton for the Handbury Lecture.
Prof Doherty currently spends most of his time in Australia as an advocate for promoting the cause of biomedical research and education.
He regularly donates time to public lectures, writing articles for newspapers and magazines and participating in a variety of media formats, including talk back radio, he said.
“His research is mainly in the area of defence against viruses,” Mr Fletcher said.
Peter 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. He is the first person with a veterinary qualification to win a Nobel Prize.
Mr Fletcher said Prof Doherty had been a member of numerous review committees, scientific advisory boards around the World, and had also spent some time in Africa and South East Asia.
“He is very committed to the idea that controlling the major infectious diseases (such as AIDS and malaria) by vaccination would contribute enormously to sustainable development, social stability and world peace.”
The lecture is open to members of the public who should contact the hospital to secure a seat for the evening.