Today, 3 Nov 2016, is ‘One Health Day’.

One Health Day, an international campaign co-coordinated by the One Health Commission, the One Health Initiative Autonomous pro bono Team and the One Health Platform Foundation, brings attention to the need for One Health interactions and for the world to ‘see them in action’.

The scientists and directors of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), which is based in Africa and works for ‘better lives through livestock’ throughout the developing world, are strong supporters of One Health approaches to healthier people, animals and environments.

Peter Doherty, an Australian veterinarian surgeon and researcher working in the field of medicine, who with his colleague Rolf Zinkernagel won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1996 and who today serves as a patron of ILRI, also supports the integrated work—and the tearing down of disciplinary silos—that One Health approaches demand.

Listen, for example, to what Doherty has to say about zoonotic disease plagues and the need for veterinary as well as medical research to control them in this 2-minute video clip he made for ILRI:

Go here to view ILRI’s One Health publications.

About Peter Doherty
Peter Doherty received the 1996 Nobel Prize, and the 1995 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, for his immunological work that showed how T cells help protect a body against viral infections. Doherty now spends three months of the year conducting research at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where he is a faculty member at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center through the College of Medicine. For the other nine months of the year, he works in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne, Victoria. A former member of the Board of Trustees of ILRI’s predecessor, the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases (ILRAD), where he served as chair of the science program committee, Doherty graciously accepted becoming ILRI’s patron in 2016.

Doherty’s semi-autobiographical book, The Beginner’s Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize, was published by The Miegunyah Press, an imprint of Melbourne University Publishing Ltd, Melbourne in 2005. A Light History of Hot Air was published in 2007 by Melbourne University Press. In 2012 he published the book Sentinel Chickens. His fourth book, The Knowledge Wars, was published in 2015.

Follow Peter Doherty on Twitter: @ProfPCDoherty