Manipal: The Nobel Laureate Peter C. Doherty said on Sunday that personalised drugs would be advantageous to developing countries such as India.

Addressing presspersons, Dr. Doherty, who participated in the ``Indo-Australian Conference on Human Variations and Pharmacogenomics,'' organised by the Australian Education International and Manipal University here, said personalised drugs would also be cheaper thus helping the people. But such drugs may not be helpful in some countries of Africa, where there were problems of governance.

As regards the AIDS vaccine, he said that it required a major breakthrough. The present drugs available reduced its severity and the progression of the HIV/AIDS virus.

It was tough to get a vaccine because of the hard structure of the virus. The HIV also kept changing. To a question, he said the impact of the genomic revolution would be known in the next 20 years.

Asked about brilliant students not opting for Basic Sciences, Dr. Doherty said the brightest students in the U.S. chose investment banking and law. Only determined students took a shot at Basic Sciences, where it was not only your intelligence but determination also that counted.

To another query, he said science came from the Protestant ethic. His own attitude was secular. New research activity should be multi-disciplinary so that knowledge from all fields such as Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics could be had.

Asked about the efficacy of alternative systems of medicine, he said that a lot of effort was going on to see how the Ayurvedic system of medicine worked. To understand that a lot of research needed to be done, he said.

Dr. Doherty said that he was presently working on immunological memory. He had written a book "A Beginner's Guide to win a Nobel Prize," he said.

Director of Manipal Life Sciences Centre K. Satyamoorthy was present.

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