TWO scientists, one Australian and the other Swiss, were yesterday awarded the Nobel Medicine Prize for a discovery 23 years ago that gives hope for treatment of such diseases as cancer, diabetes and AIDS.
Australian Dr Peter Doherty (55) and Swiss Dr Rolf Zinkernagel (52) received the prestigious award, worth $1.12 million, for joint work at the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra in 1973-75.
"It's a fantastic feeling ... I'm still in a state of shock. It is a tremendous recognition", Dr Doherty said from Memphis, Tennessee, where he works at a cancer hospital.
Dr Zinkernagel, a graduate student at the time of the find, was delighted by the award but said it was only the first step.
"We know so little still that there is enough work to keep me busy for the coming years and decades," said Dr Zinkernagel the head of Zurich University's experimental immunology institute.
Dr Zinkernagel and Dr Doherty were chosen for the award after the Nobel Assembly at Stockholm's highly respected Karolinska Institute invited nominations for the prize.
On average 250 nominations are received each year and the Nobel Assembly of 50 of the institute's 150 professors decide.
Mr Sten Grillner, chairman of the Nobel Medicine Committee said Dr Zinkernagel and Dr Doherty's discovery was groundbreaking. They discovered how the immune system recognises and can then kill virus infected cells, unlocking the mystery of how a vaccine needs to be composed.
They found that mice infected with a virus able to cause meningitis developed killer T lymphocytes that could destroy the virus infected cells, but only in a specific animal.
"Over time it has become more and more apparent how important this discovery was and continuation of this work has had a major impact on the whole field," Mr Grillner said.
"Already it has led to successful vaccines for animals and if one has such a vaccine for animals, then it must not be far away before you can do the same with humans."
Mr Grillner said the find related both to efforts to strengthen the immune response against invading micro organisms and certain forms of cancer and to lessen the effects of auto immune reactions in inflammatory diseases like rheumatic conditions, multiple sclerosis and diabetes.
"But essentially I cannot see why it could not also be imported for AIDS", Mr Grillner said.
Dr Doherty, now chairman of the department of immunology at St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, said the discovery brought about a new way of understanding how viruses should be controlled and how to make vaccines.