A Swiss scientist who won the Nobel Prize for medicine with an Australian colleague is set to be recognised for his contribution to medical research by the same Canberra institution where they did their pioneering research.
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Rolf Zinkernagel was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1996 along with Australian Peter Doherty for their research at Canberra's John Curtin School for Medical Research in the 1970s.
The pair was recognised for their work on the Killer T cell, a cell which plays a crucial role in the human immune system.
Professor Zinkernagel has been named the Curtin Medallist for Excellence in Medical Research for 2013 and he will be presented with the medal for a Lifetime of Achievement at a ceremony on Monday evening.
John Curtin School of Medical Research director Chris Parish said Professor Zinkernagel was being recognised for his Nobel Prize winning work with Professor Doherty and the medal was awarded for an outstanding contribution to medical science.
"He has continued to make major contributions to immunology throughout his career in the past 40 years," Professor Parish said.
"He's a very highly respected immunologist, not only his Nobel Prize winning work, but the work he subsequently did as a researcher so that makes him a very worthy recipient of the medal, not just for that original work that won him the Nobel Prize."
The medal has been awarded to three Nobel Prize winners since it was started in 2003.
Speaking to The Canberra Times from Switzerland, Professor Zinkernagel said he was honoured to be named the Curtin medallist.
He will also give a talk on Monday evening about why we do not have a vaccine for HIV or tuberculosis, something he has been working on for the past three decades.
Professor Zinkernagel said HIV and TB were similar because once a person acquired an infection they could not get rid of it.
He said the way the diseases worked raised questions of whether if a vaccine was developed, it could be done in the traditional way like other vaccines for polio, tetanus and small pox or if an alternative approach was needed.
He said developing a vaccine for HIV or TB was "not impossible but highly unlikely".
"It's so, in a way, balanced and sophisticated that to imitate that balance, that co-evolutionary balance, is probably too difficult to get it right," he said.
