Australian Nobel laureate accidentally tweets Google search
Peter Doherty won the Nobel Prize for his breakthroughs on immune research. Arsineh Houspian/The Age
Nobel Prize-winning Australian doctor Peter Doherty received an unexpected bump in followers after tweeting something he intended to Google.
Yesterday afternoon Professor Doherty posted a four-word tweet: "Dan Murphy opening hours".
"If this is something to do with a clinical trial, sign me up," one Twitter user replied.
"Whole lot safer than bleach," replied Prof. Doherty, a coy reference to Donald Trump's suggestion that injecting disinfectant could cure coronavirus.
In the hours since, the tweet was liked more than 8000 times.
His tweet earlier today about the potential coronavirus vaccine from Oxford University has, on current count, received 56 likes.
"Not sure what this means but, since inadvertently tweeting about Dan Murphy at lunchtime, I seemed to have picked up 1100 followers," he wrote later in the day.
Peter Doherty is one of Australia's most prominent and well-regarded medical researchers. Justin McManus/The Age
He added a quote from poet and noted wit Dorothy Parker.
"I'd rather have a bottle in front'er me than a frontal lobotomy."
Prof. Doherty's work on T cells in the immune system won him the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1996.
He was subsequently named Australian of the Year.
The coronavirus as seen under a microscope. The Peter Doherty Institute
In late January, the Peter Doherty Institute in Melbourne were the first to replicate COVID-19 in laboratory conditions.
The lab-grown virus recreation has proven critical in the development of potential vaccines around the world.
So if anyone deserves a trip to the bottle shop, it's Prof. Doherty.
Dan Murphy's is one of the many bottle shops around the country which have lifted their voluntary alcohol restrictions overnight.
Customers will no longer be limited to 12 bottles of wine or two slabs of beer per transaction.
Checkout queues snake down the aisles at a Dan Murphy's in Brunswick late last month. Rachel Dexter
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