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Setting it Straight - Issue #31

Written by Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty

We’ll get back to our story of cell-mediated immunity (CMI) next week when I discuss the work that Rolf Zinkernagel and I did (1973 to 1975) at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR), Canberra, that led to our 1996 Nobel Prize. First, though, I’d like to summarise a little of the underlying history. More detail can be found if you scroll down through the following links.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1996/doherty/biographic

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1996/zinkernagel/biographical/ 

The Australian National University (ANU) was founded in 1948 as a postgraduate institution to produce PhD graduates for the State Universities and the CSIRO. Constituted as independent Research Schools, the ANU spanned the humanities (Asian languages, anthropology, social sciences) and the hard sciences. Australian Nobel Prize winner (1945, for penicillin), Howard Florey, the head of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University, played a major part in establishing the JCSMR and though he did not, as hoped, become the first Director, he did serve (1963-8, from the UK) as ANU Chancellor.