Peter Doherty shared the 1996 Nobel Medicine Prize for discovering the nature of the cellular immune defense. Based at the University of Melbourne and also spending part of his year at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital, Memphis, he continues to be involved in research directed at understanding and preventing the severe consequences of influenza virus infection. In addition, he goes in to bat for evidence-based reality, relating to areas as diverse as childhood vaccination, global hunger and anthropogenic climate change. In an effort to communicate more broadly, he has published 4 “lay” books, and has more in progress.