FiRST Award Winners Announced
National And South Island FiRST Award Winners Announced
Groundbreaking research into novel therapies to prevent cataracts and biological treatment of wool scouring wastes have taken top honours in this year’s prestigious FiRST Awards, sponsored by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology.
The South Island FiRST Awards and the winner of the national FiRST Award were announced at a function in Christchurch tonight (Friday 29 June). The North Island winners were honoured at a similar event in Auckland last week.
The North Island Regional award winner, young Auckland scientist Kaa-Sandra Chee, was named the national winner for a research project titled ‘Novel Opportunities to Prevent Lens Cataract’. Matthew Savage, a Ph.D student at Canterbury University, won the Technology for Industry Fellowship or TIF Award and the South Island Regional award for research titled ‘Biological treatment of wool scouring wastes presents new export opportunities for Timaru’.
Other young scientists were honoured in the Christchurch awards for research into developing a method of labelling chemical compounds, the genetic make-up of the New Zealand abalone, and the development of a new type of potato with the best attributes of two different varieties.
Tonight’s winners in the four Awards categories – TIF, Tuapapa Putaiao Maori Fellowship, Bright Futures and New Zealand Science and Technology Postdoctoral Fellowship – each receive one-thousand dollars. The regional winner also receives a plinth and the national winner a laptop computer.
A number of other projects were highly commended including research into improving the survival rate of newborn lambs in cold weather, pregnancy in reptiles and 3D imaging.
The awards were presented by New Zealand born scientist Professor Alan MacDiarmid, who was a co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry last year. Professor MacDiarmid is on a 10-day tour of New Zealand.
Other speakers at the awards ceremony included Neil Richardson, Chairman of the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and Sir Gil Simpson, Chief Executive of Aoraki Corporation.
Sir Gil Simpson and Dame Cheryl Sotheron, CEO of Te Papa, judged the finalists in this year’s Awards, reflecting the importance of co-operation between the business and science and technology sectors.
The Awards ceremony, held at Rydges Hotel in Christchurch, was attended by about 150 people. The presentation followed a half day seminar on the theme of bringing science and business closer together.
More than 90 research projects were submitted to the FiRST Awards this year, well up on previous years. The FiRST Awards have been presented annually since 1999 by the Foundation and showcase the outstanding work being done by young researchers, scientists and innovators.
Any person currently receiving research funding from the Foundation has been eligible to enter the awards by presenting their projects on a poster, which makes the findings simple, clear and easily understandable.
ENDS
SOUTH ISLAND
WINNERS
(CHRISTCHURCH AWARDS CEREMONY LIST)
Highly
Commended
(PRIZE = CERTIFICATES AND $50 BOOK
TOKEN)
Jonathan Carr, Technology for Industry Fellowship
Implicit Surface Modelling with Radial Basis
Functions
Company: Applied Research Associates NZ Ltd,
Company Mentor: Dr Rick Fright
Highly Commended
(PRIZE
= CERTIFICATES AND $50 BOOK TOKEN)
Rachel Forrest, Tuapapa
Putaiao Maori Fellowship
Variation in the B3-AR Gene: A
Double-Edged sword?
Academic Supervisor: Dr. Jon
Hickford, Lincoln University
Maori Mentor: Ailsa
Smith
Highly Commended
(PRIZE = CERTIFICATES AND $50
BOOK TOKEN)
Dr. Jane Girling, NZ Science and Technology
Postdoctoral Fellowship
The story of the lizard with the
really long pregnancy (Physiological control of pregnancy in
alpine reptiles.)
Mentor: Assoc. Professor Roy Swain,
University of Tasmania
SOUTH ISLAND FELLOWSHIP WINNERS
(PRIZE = CERTIFICATES AND $1,000
CHEAQUES)
Technology
for Industry Fellowship
Matthew Savage
Biological
treatment of wool scouring wastes presents new export
opportunities for Timaru.
Company: ADM Group Ltd, Company
Mentor: Graeme Wood
Academic Supervisor: Professor
Laurence Weatherley, University of Canterbury
Tuapapa
Putaiao Maori
Fellowship
Maxine
Bryant
Molecular Analysis of an Abalone (Haliotis iris)
Actin Gene
Academic Supervisor: Professor F Sin,
University of Canterbury
Maori Mentor: Jeanne
Kerr
Bright Futures
Scholarship
Derek
Martyn
An Amino Acid Protecting Group that can be
coloured on demand
Academic Supervisor: Dr. Andrew Abell,
University of Canterbury
NZ
Science and Technology Postdoctoral
Fellowship
Dr.
Margaret Gilpin
Creating Chimeric Clones
Mentor: Dr.
Tony Conner, Crop and Food Research
SOUTH ISLAND
REGIONAL WINNER (PRIZE = PLINTH)
Matthew Savage
Biological treatment of wool scouring wastes presents
new export opportunities for Timaru.
NATIONAL WINNER
(PRIZE = LAPTOP COMPUTER)
Kaa-Sandra Chee
Novel
Opportunities to Prevent Lens
Cataract
Winner
and Project Profiles
Highly Commended
Technology for
Industry Fellowship Highly Commended – Jonathan
Carr
Jonathan graduated with a 1st class Honours degree
in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Canterbury
University in 1991. In 1995 he completed his doctorate at
Canterbury, specialising in 3D ultrasound and aspects of
X-ray CT imaging. Novel systems for 3D ultrasound imaging
and the design of cranial prosthesis manufacture were
developed at Christchurch Hospital. He continued with the
development of 3D ultrasound at Cambridge University and the
Fraunhoffer Institute in Stuttgart. Jonathan returned to New
Zealand in 1999 and joined applied Research Associates NZ
Ltd in Christchurch where he has been developing their
Radial Basis Function or RBF technology in association with
Canterbury University.
Jonathan’s research has focussed
on modelling and reconstruction from incomplete data of 3D
objects using RBF technology. This process uses Computer
Aided Design or CAD and computer graphics and animation
packages. His work has wide application in all fields of 3D
imaging from geology and animation to medical imaging.
Applied Research Associates RBF technology makes it possible
to represent very large datasets with a single mathematical
function, a task that was previously believed to be
unfeasible.
Tuapapa Putaiao Maori Highly Commended –
Rachel Forrest
Rachel Forrest completed her undergraduate
studies at the University of Canterbury and the Christchurch
Polytechnic. She is currently working at Lincoln University.
Rachel is of Maniapoto descent and was born and raised in
the small farming community of Marton. Her whanau marae, Te
Ahoroa, is in Te Kuiti. She says a desire to research
something of significance to New Zealand and Maoridom led
her into the field of agricultural science. "Most of my
whanau are high country farmers, so doing my Ph.D research
into cold tolerance in sheep should have a direct effect on
their productivity,” she says.
Rachel’s work investigates
variations within the gene in sheep that determines how the
body uses its energy at any one time - for example for heat
or muscle or fat production. Her aim is to find a genetic
marker that might improve the survival rate for newborn
lambs in cold weather. Rachel says 15 – 20% of all lambs
born in New Zealand die within the first three weeks of
life, with at least one third of these deaths due to
starvation and cold exposure. “Hopefully my work will result
in less reproductive waste,” says Rachel. To carry out her
research, Rachel has collected all the dead lambs within
selected flocks on numerous South Island high country sheep
stations over the past three lambing seasons. To date she
has isolated six different variants, or alleles, within the
B 3 –adrenergic receptor gene.
NZ Science and Technology
Postdoctoral Fellowship Highly Commended
– Dr Jane
Girling
Dr Jane Girling is currently based at the
University of Tasmania in Australia. Her field of interest
is the reproductive physiology of vertebrates, particularly
reptiles. Many reptiles are viviparous (meaning they produce
live young rather than laying eggs) and this includes almost
all of Tasmania’s lizard and snake fauna. Dr Girling has
been using one of Tasmania’s endemic skinks, the Southern
Snow Skink, as a model species to investigate the mechanisms
that control reproduction in viviparous lizards. This work
follows on from her Ph.D research in New Zealand, where she
investigated the structure and function of the reproductive
tract in geckos and the differences between egg-laying and
live-bearing species.
South Island Fellowship Winners
Technology for Industry Fellowship – Matthew
Savage
Matthew Savage graduated from the University of
Canterbury in 1998 as a Chemical Engineer. From there he
joined ADM Group Ltd, a Timaru manufacturing firm, initially
to complete a short term contract. However ADM Group
persuaded Matthew to stay in New Zealand and complete his
post doctoral study here, rather than travel to the United
Kingdom to do the study as he originally planned. Matthew’s
research involves developing a biological treatment system
capable of cleaning up the particularly strong and
distasteful effluent produced by wool scouring plants. After
this treatment, the effluent can be discharged into the
environment at minimal cost and with little environmental
impact. After two years work, the large scale experimental
plant developed as part of Matthew’s research has been sold
to a small wool scour in Ashburton as a fully functioning
industrial effluent treatment plant. The first full size
commercial treatment plant based on his design has now also
been sold and is due for installation in Portugal later this
year. These two sales have a combined value of more than
half a million dollars. Matthew is passionate about
snowboarding and mountain climbing.
Tuapapa Putaiao Maori
Fellowship – Maxine Bryant
Maxine Bryant is of Ngati
Kahungunu descent through her mother, who was from Mohaka in
the Bay of Plenty. Her father was from the Nelson area. She
has lived in Christchurch all her life and completed a BSc
(Hons) in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University
of Canterbury. Maxine’s honours project was a study of the
insulin-like growth factor in the zebrafish, Danio rerio.
She is currently studying for her Ph.D at the University of
Canterbury.
Maxine is researching developmental genes
during the larval stage of the New Zealand abalone, Haliotis
iris. The aim of her work is to isolate developmentally
important genes in Haliotis and show what happens to them
during larval development. As part of her work, an abalone
actin gene has been isolated and sequenced and will be used
as a control during gene expression studies. The study of
developmental genes is interesting in two ways – it explains
how embryonic development is regulated and it can be used to
explain how animal groups differ from each other.
Bright
Futures Scholarship – Derek Martyn
Derek graduated with a
BSc (Hons) first class from the University of Canterbury in
1998, majoring in Chemistry and Biochemistry. In 1999 he was
awarded a University of Canterbury Doctoral Scholarship and
a Bright Futures top achievers scholarship to carry out
research with Dr Andrew Abell at the university’s Chemistry
Department.
Derek’s research is aimed at developing a
method to label compounds with a molecular tag that can be
revealed, and therefore identified, by a specific and
controlled chemical process. This system is much like a bar
code used to identify and track a product on a supermarket
shelf. Rather than using a bar code reader, the chemical bar
code can be identified by measuring its UV spectrum. The
idea has a number of potential applications. It could be
used to tag a compound so that its origin can be tracked at
a later date so, for example, the origin of paint used in
graffiti could be found using this method. A more immediate
application would be the specific identification and/or
isolation of tagged derivatives from synthetic mixtures or
libraries of compounds.
NZ Science and Technology
Postdoctoral Fellowship – Dr Margaret Gilpin
Dr Margaret
Gilpin gained her Ph.D in Plant Breeding and Genetics from
Lincoln University in 1997. She was then employed for two
years as a Post Doctoral fellow in the Plant Biology
Department at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural
University in Copenhagen, Denmark. On returning to New
Zealand in late 1998, Dr Gilpin began working with Professor
Tony Conner at Crop & Food Research, Lincoln. Her research
interests include developing and analysing improved crop
plants via traditional plant breeding methods and genetic
manipulation.
Her research project is called Creating
Chimeric Clones. It aims to find better ways to achieve more
plant diversity using genetic mosaics to develop chimeric
plants. A chimeric plant has a mixture of cells from two or
more different plants. Using potatoes as a model plant, Dr
Gilpin was able to develop new varieties which have the
inner flesh layer from one parent and the outer skin layer
from another parent. She successfully mixed cells from a
purple potato, together with cells of a white potato, to
produce a purple skinned potato with white inner flesh. This
development could lead to the creation of new potatoes with
the best attributes of different varieties.
National FiRST
Award Winner – Kaa-Sandra Chee
Kaa-Sandra Chee, a
24-year-old of Maori-Chinese ethnic origin, grew up in the
Bay of Plenty (Otumoetai College) and has completed two
degrees at the University of Auckland – a Bachelor of
Science majoring in Biological Sciences and a Master of
Science.
She is currently investigating the causative
agent of lens cataract for her Ph.D research
project.
Cataracts blind twenty million people world
wide. The only cure is lens replacement with an intraocular
implant, which often requires repeat surgery due to
secondary cataract formation. The project focuses on
investigating the mechanisms by which lens volume is
controlled. Using a combination of techniques, Kaa-Sandra is
gathering an inventory of the transport mechanisms present
in the lens. Further analysis will determine what
happens
to these transport systems during the formation
of cataracts. This is expected to reveal novel and
non-invasive possibilities for using drugs to treat
cataracts.
Ends