February News
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The Otago School of Medical Sciences held its annual Awards ceremony on Wednesday 27th January in the Hunter Centre. Over 100 academic and general staff and students attended the ceremony to celebrate the achievements of the 2009 year.
Two members of the Biochemistry Department's staff received awards, Dr Mary Thompson as Distinguished Academic Teacher for 2009, and Tony Zaharic as Dinstinguished Teaching Fellow for 2009.
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As of the first of February our Head of Department is Professor Kurt Krause. Kurt came to Otago in 2006 from University of Houston, Baylor College of Medicine where he worked for 16 years on structural biology of infectious diseases. |
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January News
 From the 18th to the 22nd of January the Biochemistry Department played host to 24 secondary school students in the 21st annual Hands-On Science summer camp. The students come from all over New Zealand to experience what science is like at university. The Biochemistry students learned techniques used for genetic engineering such as DNA extraction and manipulation, and performed experiments to determine whether proteins they produced were working properly. A great time was had by all, and if past experience is anything to go by, we will see many of those students back at Otago in the future. For more information on Hands-On Science, click here.
It's that time again when students need to decide which papers they are going to study in the coming year. It helps a great deal to have a goal in mind when making these decisions: What type of career appeals to you? What area of study is most interesting? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Even if you are not intending to major in Biochemistry, if you are interested in the biological sciences, papers in Biochemistry will add value to your degree. We have mapped out some potential study paths here, with information on the papers you may need to take to achieve your career goals. Paths of Study
We have compiled a list of the topics that are available for this year's BSc(Hons), Masters, and PGDipSci students' research projects. You can download the pdf here or via the link at the left of this page.
December News
Dr Elizabeth Duncan has been awarded a Health Sciences Division post-doctoral fellowship for two years working in the Developmental Genetics Laboratory of Assoc Prof Peter Dearden.
Dr Duncan's research involves discovering the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that control the activity of the honeybee ovary. Worker honeybees have small inactive ovaries, while queen bees have large active ones. When a queen is removed from a bee hive, some of the workers activate their ovaries and can lay eggs. Dr Duncan's research aims to discover how that works genetically, and how developmental plasticity like this, a common phenomenon in biology and human disease, might be controlled by genes. |
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Four Biochemistry PhDs were conferred at the University of Otago's graduation ceremony on the 19th December. From left to right; Dr Rob Fagerlund, who is currently doing post-doctoral work with Assoc Prof Julian Eaton-Rye in this department; Dr Euan Rodger, who is now working with Prof Ian Morison in the Pathology Department; Dr Payal Diwadkar, who is to be married in India on Christmas Day and will then be returning to Christchurch to work at Canterbury University; and Dr Yoshio Nakatani, who has a post-doctoral fellowship with Assoc Prof John Cutfield in this Department. |
Dr Stephanie Hughes has been successful twice in the most recent funding round of the Neurological Foundation of New Zealand. She is a member of two collaborative groups who have each received funding for research involving lentiviral vector technology, one for Parkinson's Disease, the other for Batten Disease.
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Santa Claus made a surprise visit to the Biochemistry Department's Christmas barbecue at Woodhaugh Gardens on Friday the 4th December.
What seemed like hundreds of children (but was probably more like fifty) received a variety of interesting gifts while they munched on sausages and drank fizz and juice.
Very popular was the balloon helicopter, the recipient of which was watched enviously by a number of post-grad students and staff members. |
November News
Iain Lamont is one of the twelve members of academic staff in the university who were promoted to full professorships recently.
Professor Lamont first came to our Department in 1987, after completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Edinburgh and his PhD at the University of Oxford, and carrying out PostDoctoral research at the University of Adelaide. His research programme centres on the molecular mechanisms that allow a common bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, to cause infections in patients with cystic fibrosis or other predisposing conditions. In particular, he has investigated how the bacteria obtain iron which is essential to their survival and growth. He is recognised as an international leader in this field, with his research team having made many important advances. This research programme has also provided training for a large number of students in biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics and Professor Lamont is proud to have been nominated by his students for the recent Otago University Students Association "Supervisor of the Year" award. |
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A University of Otago biochemistry honours student has received a prestigious Woolf Fisher Scholarship to support her PhD study at Cambridge University.
Nathalie Saurat is one of three Woolf Fisher recipients selected nationally last week. Nathalie plans to pursue her PhD at Cambridge's Department of Biochemistry, where she will research microRNAs (strands of molecules which regulate gene expression).
She says it is her hope that a greater understanding of microRNA action will one day aid in developing new cancer therapies.
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On the evening of Friday 13th of November the Department of Biochemistry held a function at Glenfalloch to mark the imminent (1st of February) handover of HOD duties from John Cutfield to Kurt Krause. Joining us in the festivities were three of the four previous Department Heads, pictured on the right with the current and future Heads. |
Left to right; Prof George Petersen, Prof Kurt Krause, Prof Warren Tate, Assoc Prof John Cutfield, Assoc Prof Merv Smith |
 Julian Peat, a BAppSci student who has just completed his Honours project working in the Tate Lab, has been awarded a national Rutherford Scholarship to support his studies at Cambridge University next year.
Dr Martin Hohmann-Marriott (Eaton-Rye Lab) and Dr Miriam Sharpe (Krause Lab) have been awarded Postdoctoral Fellowships from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology. Dr Hohmann-Marriott will look at novel approaches for solar energy conversion, and Dr Sharpe will be investigating the bioluminescence mechanism of glow-worms.
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The three year fellowship will enable Dr Hohmann-Marriott to define the interface of biological nanowires with photosynthetic metabolism. He will investigate the potential to directly generate electricity from single cells and entire ecosystems. |
Dr Sharpe will be purifying, characterising, and elucidating the three-dimensional structure of the glow-worm luciferase protein, with a view to developing it as a biotechnological tool. |
 University of Otago geneticist, Associate Prof Parry Guilford, has gained a James Cook Fellowship to pursue innovative research aimed at reversing or preventing the early stages of stomach cancer.
The two-year fellowship will allow Prof Guilford, of the university's Cancer Genetics Laboratory, to extend his ground-breaking work on the genetics of stomach cancer.
His planned research involves "very promising" new approaches which could lead to much earlier detection of stomach cancer and other common cancers, as well as potentially enabling therapies to be undertaken much earlier.(Otago Daily Times)
 Dr Stephanie Hughes from the Department of Biochemistry, along with Dr Ruth Empson of the Department of Physiology, has been granted $935,000 over three years from the Marsden Fund to investigate the role of developmental transcription factors in the maintenance of neuronal function.
Dr Hughes's research also involves investigating the use of viral gene therapy for Batten disease.
 The enthusiasm and joy Tony Zaharic brings to the relatively difficult discipline of biochemistry has seen his students vote him the Otago University Students’ Association top teacher for a second time.
The Biochemistry Senior Teaching Fellow beat nine other finalists to win the eighth annual awards at a ceremony at the Staff Club last Thursday.
Mr Zaharic also won the award in 2007 and was in the top 10 last year.
(Otago Bulletin)
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