Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1996 (with Rolf Martin Zinkernagel) "for discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence" Peter Doherty was born on 15th October, 1940 in Brisbane, Australia. He attended Indooroopilly State School, at which time his interests were literature and history. He spent most of his time indoor and read anything and everything. But later at university he selected Veterinary Science and graduated with his B.V.Sc. (Bachelor of Veterinary Science) in 1962 from University of Queensland. In order to fulfil his bond with the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock, Doherty worked as a Veterinary officer in rural areas. This was against his wish as he was interested in laboratory research at that time. As a veterinary officer he did post-mortems on cattle and pigs that died of unknown causes. He diagnosed the disease called Trichomoniasis in the area. It was believed up until then that this disease was eradicated from that area, so it wasn’t good news for Doherty’s employer. They considered him as a danger to their regulatory effort and placed him at the Animal Research Institute at Yeerongpilly. At ARI he did experiments on epidemiology of bovine leptospirosis and submitted his Master’s thesis based on this study. In early 1967 Doherty sailed to Britain and joined the department of experimental pathology at the University of Edinburgh. Here he researched the tickbone, encephalomyelitis virus. He was awarded his PhD from this university in 1970. In 1971 Doherty moved to the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR), Canberra, to learn more about immunology. At JCSMR, he met Rolf M. Zinkernagel and the pair worked together to study how an infecting microorganism can cause damage and disease. The pair identified the need for the immune system to reco-gnise both self and foreign molecules. Their research on the immune system gained them the Nobel Prize in 1996. Their explanation on the behaviour of the immune system led to further research into immunology, including strengthening the immune response against invading micro-organisms and certain cancers, and how to diminish the effects of autoimmune reactions in inflammatory diseases. Doherty didn’t receive a permanent position at the university so he left Australia and accepted a position at Winstar Institute in Philadelphia. However, a decade later in 2001, Doherty returned to Australia, where he now works at St. Jude's Children Research Hospital. He was awarded the Australian of the Year in 1997. | 
