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Peter Doherty (immunologist)

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Peter Doherty
AC FRS FMedSci
Born
Peter Charles Doherty

15 October 1940 (1940-10-15) (age 84)[3]
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Alma mater
Known forMajor histocompatibility complex
AwardsPaul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (1983)
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1996)
Australian of the Year (1997)
Leeuwenhoek Lecture (1999)[1]
Scientific career
FieldsMedicine
Immunology
InstitutionsJohn Curtin School of Medical Research
Australian National University
ThesisStudies in the experimental pathology of louping-ill encephalitis (1970)
Doctoral advisorG. L. Montgomery
J. T. Stamp[2]

Peter Charles Doherty (born 15 October 1940)[3] is an Australian immunologist and Nobel laureate.[4] He received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 1995, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Rolf M. Zinkernagel[5] in 1996 and was named Australian of the Year in 1997.[6] In the Australia Day Honours of 1997, he was named a Companion of the Order of Australia for his work with Zinkernagel.[7] He is also a National Trust Australian Living Treasure.[8] In 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, Doherty's immune system research was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as an iconic "innovation and invention".[9]

Early life and education

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Peter Charles Doherty was born in the Brisbane, suburb of Sherwood on 15 October 1940, to Eric Charles Doherty and Linda Doherty (née Byford).[10][11] He grew up in Oxley,[12] and attended Indooroopilly State High School (which now has a lecture theatre named after him).

After receiving his bachelor's degree in veterinary science in 1962 from the University of Queensland, he was a rural veterinary officer for the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock before taking up laboratory-based work at the Department's Animal Research Institute.[13] There he met microbiology graduate Penelope Stephens and they were married in 1965.[13] Doherty received his master's degree in veterinary science in 1966 from the University of Queensland.[14]

He obtained his PhD in pathology [15] in 1970 from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland,[2] then returned to Australia to continue his research at the John Curtin School of Medical Research within the Australian National University in Canberra.

Research and career

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Doherty's research focused[16][17] on the immune system and his Nobel Prize-winning work described how the body's immune cells protect against viruses. He and Rolf Zinkernagel, the co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, discovered how T cells recognise their target antigens in combination with major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins.[18]

Viruses infect host cells and reproduce inside them. Killer T-cells destroy those infected cells so that the viruses cannot reproduce. Zinkernagel and Doherty discovered that, in order for killer T cells to recognise infected cells, they had to recognise two molecules on the surface of the cell – not only the virus antigen, but also a molecule of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). This recognition was done by a T-cell receptor on the surface of the T cell. The MHC was previously identified as being responsible for the rejection of incompatible tissues during transplantation. Zinkernagel and Doherty discovered that the MHC was responsible for the body fighting meningitis viruses too.[19]

Awards and honours

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Doherty was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1987.[1] In 1997, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.[20] He is the patron of the eponymous Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity (Doherty Institute), a joint venture between the University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health. It houses a group of infection and immunology experts, including Director Professor Sharon Lewin, who are charged with leading the battle against infectious diseases in humans. This became operational in 2014.[21] He became an Honorary Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) in 2015.[22] In the same year he was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences (FAHMS).[23] In April 2017 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Victoria (FRSV).[24]

John Monash Science School,[25] Moreton Bay Boys College,[26] and Murrumba State Secondary College[27] each have a house named after him.

Non academic publications

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Personal life

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As of 2021, Peter Doherty and his wife Penny live in Melbourne.[29] They have two sons, Michael, a neurologist working in the United States,[30] and James, a Melbourne-based barrister,[13] and six grandchildren.[31] He gained a renewed level of fame in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic when he accidentally tweeted the phrase 'Dan Murphy opening hours' instead of performing a web search for it.[32][33]

Doherty currently[when?] spends three months of the year conducting research at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where he is a faculty member at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center through the College of Medicine.[34] For the other 9 months of the year, he works in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne, Victoria.

References

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  1. ^ a b "Peter Doherty". royalsociety.org. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 12 June 2018.
  2. ^ a b Doherty, Peter Charles (1970). Studies in the experimental pathology of louping-ill encephalitis (PhD thesis). hdl:1842/17153. EThOS 699841. Free access icon
  3. ^ a b Anon (2017). "Doherty, Prof. Peter Charles". Who's Who (online Oxford University Press ed.). Oxford: A & C Black. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.13865. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ "Laureate Professor Peter Doherty AC". University of Queensland. 2 November 2015. Archived from the original on 2 November 2018. Retrieved 2 November 2018.
  5. ^ "Peter Doherty - Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative". Nobel Prize Inspiration Initiative. Archived from the original on 28 September 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  6. ^ Lewis, Wendy (2010). Australians of the Year. Pier 9 Press. ISBN 978-1-74196-809-5.
  7. ^ "It's an Honour - Honours - Search Australian Honours". www.itsanhonour.gov.au. Archived from the original on 29 January 2019. Retrieved 30 July 2009.
  8. ^ "Peter C. Doherty, PhD". Archived from the original on 5 September 2015. Retrieved 30 August 2015.
  9. ^ Bligh, Anna (10 June 2009). "PREMIER UNVEILS QUEENSLAND'S 150 ICONS". Queensland Government. Archived from the original on 24 May 2017. Retrieved 24 May 2017.
  10. ^ "Births". The Courier-Mail. 21 October 1940. p. 6, col. 1. Retrieved 2 September 2021.
  11. ^ "Peter C. Doherty - Biographical". Archived from the original on 22 December 2016. Retrieved 7 March 2017.
  12. ^ "Antipodes Science: Peter Doherty...downloaded". New Scientist. 23 November 1996. Archived from the original on 23 October 2020.
  13. ^ a b c Collis, Brad. "Survival of the Cells". Innovation Intelligence. Archived from the original on 2 September 2021. Retrieved 2 September 2021.
  14. ^ "Laureate Professor Peter Doherty AC". University of Queensland. 2 November 2015. Archived from the original on 2 November 2018. Retrieved 4 November 2018.
  15. ^ "The American Association of Immunologists - Peter C. Doherty". Archived from the original on 25 September 2020.
  16. ^ Peter Doherty publications indexed by Google Scholar Edit this at Wikidata
  17. ^ Peter Doherty publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  18. ^ Hawkes, Nigel (8 October 1996). "Immunity scientists win Nobel prize". The Times (London). p. 13.
  19. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1996". Archived from the original on 25 October 2018. Retrieved 25 October 2018.
  20. ^ "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement". www.achievement.org. American Academy of Achievement. Archived from the original on 15 December 2016. Retrieved 22 June 2020.
  21. ^ "Peter Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne". Archived from the original on 6 July 2014. Retrieved 8 July 2014.
  22. ^ "Report of the Annual Fellows' Meeting 2015 - The Academy of Medical Sciences". www.acmedsci.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  23. ^ "Fellowship | AAHMS – Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences". www.aahms.org. Archived from the original on 26 June 2018. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  24. ^ "Elected Fellows of the Royal Society of Victoria - The Royal Society of Victoria". The Royal Society of Victoria. Archived from the original on 7 July 2017. Retrieved 27 June 2018.
  25. ^ "House Programs". www.jmss.vic.edu.au. Archived from the original on 26 June 2018. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  26. ^ "Moreton Bay Boys' College School House Program". Moreton Bay Boys' College. Archived from the original on 26 June 2018. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  27. ^ "Murrumba State Secondary College". murrumbassc.eq.edu.au. 15 September 2011. Archived from the original on 28 January 2019. Retrieved 28 January 2019.
  28. ^ Alberici, Emma (25 August 2015), Interview: Peter Doherty, Nobel Prize Winner for Medicine in 1996, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, archived from the original on 27 August 2022, retrieved 27 August 2022
  29. ^ Willis, Olivia (13 July 2021). "Nobel prize winner Peter Doherty on navigating COVID-19 and life in lockdown". ABC News. Archived from the original on 13 July 2021.
  30. ^ Walker, Jamie (4 April 2020). "Coronavirus is just as lethal as Spanish flu, Nobel laureate Peter Doherty warns". The Australian. Archived from the original on 4 September 2021.
  31. ^ Durkin, Patrick (8 May 2020). "'I'm 79, I won the Nobel Prize and I don't give a s---'". Australian Financial Review. Archived from the original on 10 May 2020.
  32. ^ Doherty, Peter [@ProfPCDoherty] (27 April 2020). "Dan Murphy opening hours" (Tweet). Retrieved 9 January 2024 – via Twitter.
  33. ^ McGowan, Michael (27 April 2020). "Nobel prize-winning immunologist accidentally asks Twitter when he'll be able to get a drink". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  34. ^ "UTHSC people search". Archived from the original on 2 April 2015.
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