Dunedin research projects funded

Otago Daily Times 8.7.2006

Two Dunedin health research projects benefiting the health of New Zealanders have been allocated funding by the Health Research Council of New Zealand through the International Investment Opportunities Fund.

Five New Zealand teams involved in a variety of health-related research disciplines were represented in the funding allocation announced this week.

A study about perinatal mood disorders, in which a New Zealand group headed by University of otago Associate Prof Dave Grattan, of the department of anatomy and structural biology, will collaborate with an American group from Tufts University, received $210,000.

The project looks at the brain actions of prolactin in the postpartum (after child¬birth) period. The team will investigate whether abnormalities in prolactin - an essential hormone for milk production - around the time of birth, affect the mother through conditions like postpartum anxiety and depression.

The goal of the project is to establish a model to investigate the two conditions.
Tbe second project to receive funding explores a yeast model- a simplified version of the complex human system - incompletely understood despite comprising 17% of the' human genome.

Associate Prof Russell Poulter, of the university's biochemistry department, will collaborate with American researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Carnegie Institution of Washington to create and explore the first yeast model of Line-I, an abundant retrotransposon (repetitious mobile elements that reproduce through RNA). Line elements - long, interspersed, nuclear elements - are found in everything, including humans.

The project, which received $457,000, builds on the team's discovery of Zorro (a line element found in yeast causing thrush). Zorro was the first line retrotransposon to be described in any yeast.

Investment in such projects helps New Zealand health research teams participate in high-end, international research programmes, which benefit New Zealanders' health.

The objectives of the International Investment Opportunities Fund, established by the Government in 2004-05, are building international research collaborations, developing. international funding partnerships and bring; ing world-leading researchers to New Zeland.

The key consideration for the fund was the potential benefit to New Zealand from the proposed international partnership, including specific health outcomes and access to resources.