Professor Peter Doherty on COVID-19, Life, Science, and The Road Less Travelled

Originally published with transcript at: https://www.nickfabbri.com/bloom/peterdoherty

In this interview, Nick and Professor Doherty discuss:

• Peter's life and career in science and advice for young research scientists today
• The work of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in tackling the global burden of COVID-19
• The different public health responses to COVID-19 around the world
• Globalisation, pandemics and the 21st century
• President Donald Trump and the American response to COVID-19
• The state of scientific literacy and education in Australia and the world
• The proliferation of conspiracies about COVID-19, including 5G and Bill Gates
• How our societies could change as we recover from the pandemic

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. He was Australian of the Year in 1997, and has since been commuting between St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity is named in his honour, and the institute is leading a lot of the research into COVID-19 in Australia.