The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1996 was awarded on 7 October 1996 to Rolf Zinkernagel and Peter Doherty. "I assume some things will change in my life now", Rolf Zinkernagel said to the journalists between answering incessant telephone calls and shaking hands with colleagues in his small university office jammed with books and papers. "But we know so little still that there is enough work to keep me busy for the coming years and decades".