Speakers

Professor Peter Doherty, AC FAA FRS, Laureate Professor

Peter Doherty shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1996 with Swiss colleague Rolf Zinkernagel, for their discovery of how the immune system recognises virus-infected cells. He was Australian of the Year in 1997, and has since been commuting between St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. His research is mainly in the area of defence against viruses. He regularly devotes time to delivering public lectures, writing articles for newspapers and magazines, and participating in radio discussions. Peter Doherty graduated from the University of Queensland in Veterinary Science and became a veterinary officer. Moving to Scotland, he received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh Medical School. He is the frst person with a veterinary qualification to win a Nobel Prize.

Overseas Speakers

Dr James C Hogg, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
	James Hogg is an Emeritus Professor of Pathology at the University of British Columbia. In 1977, he founded a Pulmonary Research Laboratory at St Paul's Hospital that has gradually expanded in size and scope as the McDonald Research Laboratories and later as the iCAPTURE center. It currently provides facilities for more than 20 principal investigators and a support staff of over 200 persons involved in pulmonary and cardiovascular research. He maintains an active research program focused on the inflammatory process in the lung with particular reference to the structure and function of the lungs in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. Dr Hogg entered McGill University in 1966 and completed a PhD in Experimental Medicine in 1969 and a residency program in anatomic pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal prior to being appointed as an Assistant Professor in Pathology at McGill University in 1971 and as the Miranda Fraser Professor of Pathology in 1975. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1992 and was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada in August 2005.
Professor Sebastian L Johnston, St Mary's Hospital, Imperial College London, UK.
	Sebastian L Johnston is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute and the Wright Fleming Institute of Infection and Immunity at St Mary's Hospital, Imperial College London, UK. His main disciplines are pulmonology, allergy and immunology and infectious disease. His main interest is the clinical control of asthma with particular emphasis on the pathogenesis of asthma exacerbations. His main research interest has been the role of respiratory viruses and their interaction with asthma and COPD and in particular, the association of virus infections with acute exacerbations of asthma and COPD. Other major interests include RSV bronchiolitis, antiviral immunity, immune regulation and susceptibility to viral infection, the contribution of viral infection/colonisation to chronic stable airway disease, the molecular mechanisms of virus induced inflammation and anti viral therapies. He was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1999. He is the Chairman of the Infection Groups in both the European Respiratory Society and the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. He became Editor of Thorax in Jan 2003.
Professor Jonathan Grigg, Queen Mary Hospital, London, UK
	Jonathan Grigg is Professor of Paediatric Respiratory and Environmental Medicine at Queen Mary University London. He qualified in 1982 from the London Hospital (Whitechapel). After a 3 yr clinical fellowship at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, and a 1 yr fellowship in the Department of Pediatric Leukocyte Biology at the Texas Children's Hospital, he became a clinical fellow in the Department of Thoracic Medicine at the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne (1993 to 1995). On return to the UK, he was appointed as a Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine at the University of Leicester, then moved to London in 2006. His current research interests include i) the effect of air pollution on pulmonary innate immunity, ii) the treatment of preschool wheeze, and iii) the management of difficult asthma in school age children.