An Insider's Plague Year

Description

An illuminating glimpse into the scientific response to the COVID-19 pandemic from Australia's most prominent 'insider'. In An Insider's Plague Year, Nobel laureate and prominent COVID-19 authority Professor Peter Doherty recounts his response to the pandemic as it developed from January 2020-February 2021. As citizens and governments around the world suddenly became acutely dependent on the capacity of scientists to understand and recommend appropriate public health policy responses to the disease, Doherty and his team were at the forefront. In his always conversational style, Doherty systematically provides a deep understanding of the virus and of the numerous areas of knowledge that have been brought together in the fight against it. Rendering complex medical and scientific issues accessible and providing a fascinating glimpse into how health experts have worked with governments to control and manage the challenge, Doherty also turns his mind to what we can hope for in the months and years ahead, considering even larger questions about the pivotal role of science in our lives.

Peter Doherty's pioneering research into human immune systems earned him the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1996. He was Australian of the Year and awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1997 and currently divides his professional time between the University of Melbourne and St Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, where he is helping unravel the mystery of childhood cancer.