13 Sep 2019
Staff and students gather to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Doherty Institute
Staff and students gathered on Thursday, 12 September to mark the fifth anniversary of the Doherty Institute, with Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Alan Finkel, and Chief Executive Officer of the National Health and Medical Research Council, Professor Anne Kelso, amongst the big names in attendance.
If you would like to hear the full version of the speech Professor Anne Kelso gave, you can watch the video below.
The brainchild of Professor James McCluskey, the University of Melbourne’s Deputy Vice Chancellor of Research and member of the Doherty Council, the conception for the Doherty Institute – a joint venture between the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Hospital – dates back to 2006.
Addressing staff and students, Professor McCluskey said they wanted to try and create something “bigger than the sum of its parts”.
“The idea was to bring the University and the Hospital together in the hope that we could have an end to end understanding of infectious diseases challenges as they emerged in the community,” Professor McCluskey said.
“We would have coalface clinicians, primary care networks, diagnostic labs, basic scientists working not just on the bugs but on the immune response, coupled with epidemiology and public health skills. We could be a little bit like the CDC. That was the theory and the logic.
“We have outstanding people and it is all about the people. I think the Institute has performed magnificently, not just in research grants, but actually, more importantly, in providing advice to governments on all aspects of infectious diseases; from AMR, to flesh eating bugs, to a cure for HIV, to Ebola testing, and so on.
“We have been blessed with Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty as our namesake. It was a wonderful gesture that he agreed for us to use his name.”
Peter also addressed the crowd, enlightening the audience on the meaning behind ‘Doherty’.
“The motto of the family, which is in Gaelic, is ‘born of a destructive person’,” he said.
“But I would like to think it means ‘born of a deconstructive person’, because that’s what we do – we deconstruct, we take things apart, we try and put it together, maybe in better way, and try and understand how we can improve on things. That’s what we do as researchers and developers and how we change things.”
Professor Christine Kilpatrick, Chief Executive of Melbourne Health and member of the Doherty Council, said: “There’s no doubt it was brave in some ways to relocate many of our services from Melbourne Health, particularly the Victorian Infectious Diseases Service, the clinicians that work in that service when the patients are across the road.
“But it was absolutely the right thing. There is no doubt that research and training underpins excellent clinical care, and the three elements working together are absolutely vital for us to be successful.”
In thanking and commending staff and students for their achievements over the last five years, Professor Sharon Lewin said the priority for the next five years would be to continue to provide an environment where new ideas can continue to flourish and be tested.
“I look forward to continuing to grow our outstanding track record in basic discoveries, as these discoveries will be the future treatments we will need in 20 years,” she said.
“We will also continue to work in partnership with government and also innovate to ensure a world class public health response to infectious disease in Victoria, Australia and the world.”
A full report on the impact of the Doherty Institute over the last five years will be available by the end of the year.
Watch Professor Anne Kelso's full speech below.