A former Australian of the Year, Professor Doherty will visit ANSTO’s Lucas Heights campus to give a high level scientific talk about how the body’s defence mechanisms deal with viruses and bacteria. 

 

The talk titled ‘The Killer Defence’ will focus on the part played by killer T cells, part of multi-faceted immune system that along with the brain, and its various peripheral sensors, is the most complex of all body systems. 

 

This was the work that led to Professor Doherty winning the 1996 Nobel Medicine, which he shared with co-recipient Professor Rolf Zinkernagel. Killer T cells play an important role attacking viruses that infect host cells to stop them from reproducing in the body. Zinkernagel and Doherty discovered that, in order for killer T cells to recognize infected cells, they had to recognize two molecules on the surface of the cell.

 

This lecture will be a rare chance for the public to hear from a Nobel Prize winner and one of the world’s leading experts in this field.