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Internationally recognised physician and scientist, Professor Rolf Zinkernagel, will present this year's Ian Constable Lecture, On Regulation of Immunity and Immunopathology by Antigen, at The University of Western Australia.

Why don't all vaccines work? Professor Zinkernagel's lecture will address this important issue by discussing immune responses to infection.

Professor Zinkernagel and his Australian colleague Professor Peter Doherty were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of how the immune system recognises virus-infected cells.

Besides his interest in solving uncertainties and discrepancies in immunology, Professor Zinkernagel tries to further biomedical research and its application. He has supported gene technology in various locations in Switzerland and Europe, has been member of the Swiss Science Council, and is now a member of the European Research Council.

From 1973 to 1975 Professor Zinkernagel undertook PhD studies and later postdoctoral research at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University in Canberra, where he worked with Professor Doherty.

Professor Zinkernagel then moved to the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla in the United States. In 1980 he joined the Department of Pathology at the University of Zurich where he studied immune protection and immunopathology caused by virus infections with Hans Hengartner. He retired from the University in 2008.

The annual Ian Constable Lecture, presented by UWA's Institute of Advanced Studies since 2000, is dedicated to Professor Constable, the founding Director of the Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science and of the Lions Eye Institute.

WHAT: Ian Constable Lecture 2010 - On Regulation of Immunity and Immunopathology by Antigen

WHEN: Tuesday, September 28, from 6.00pm to 7.30pm

WHERE: Octagon Theatre, UWA (Carparks 1 and 2, off Stirling Highway and Hackett Drive entrances)

All are welcome to this free event. Tickets are essential and are available from the Octagon Theatre Box Office, (+61 8 6488 2440), 12 noon - 4.15pm Monday to Friday.  Limit of six per person.

Media references

Audrey Barton (Institute of Advanced Studies)  (+61 8)  6488 1340

Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8) 6488 5563 / (+61 4) 32 637 716