Research medal for Otago Scientist

Otago Daily Times 26.8.2006

A University of Otago scientist, with cures for HIV and Alzheimer's in his sights, has been awarded the institution's highest research honour.

'World-leading biochemist'f and molecular biologist Prof Warren Tate is the recipient this year of the Distinguished Research Medal, it was announced yesterday. He joins a small group of eminent scholars to have received the medal.

Prof Tate said he felt humbled by the award. '

"Somehow, when people in your own backyard acknowledge the work you have done, it's pretty special. I have to say, it's given me a very warm feeling," Prof Tate said from the small office behind his laboratory.

Vice-chancellor Prof David Skegg said Prof Tate's contributions to the field of protein synthesis were outstanding.

"Prof Tate has an exceptional record of personal research and of training younger researchers. He has also been an unselfish colleague who has contributed an enormous amount to the university community and to science in New Zealand,"

Professor Tate's core area of research is the genetic process of protein synthesis and, specifically, how proteins are released from the cellular site where they are synthe-
sised.

While investigating the process in the 1980s, Prof Tate made what he calls a "serendipitous discovery" of a new mechanism for how genes are regulated, involving a particular protein.

"It was exquisite, as a mechanism. We thought it was a one-off for this gene, but it turns out HIV and other viruses use the same mechanism. Our vision now is that we might be able to develop an anti-HIV drug targeting this mechanism that is low cost and amenable to the developing world," he said.

"A whole field has grown up around this initial discovery of ours,"

A natural extension of that first discovery led to another of Prof Tate's research areas.

"This second lot of research came out of the first. It made me think about a signal in the genetic code that we have been studying - how protein synthesis stops."

His discovery - that the stop signal was more complex than traditionally believed - was was so controversial that Prof Tate initially met resistance when he tried to have it published in the 1990s.

"It meant for us, we had to be really on our game, to have the evidence as sharply honed as possible in support of our ideas," he said.

In recent years, Prof Tate has entered an entirely new field, the molecular basis of memory.

The work began with the late Prof Graham Goddard from the psychology department, and has continued with Prof Cliff Abraham.

"I have been very happy to be the secondary [researcher] in this," Prof Tate said.

The work offers the prospect of a treatment for Alzheimer's, as the researchers hone in on the molecular mechanisms involved.

"We hope in the future that something might come out of this that might be able to produce a neuro-protective frag ment that could be developed as a therapeutic agent"

The potential implications of the work kept him going, Prof Tate said.

"Day to day, there are lots of disappointments and frustrations, but if you remind yourself these are important issues, you can take quite a lot of disappointment. The more important the issue, the harder it is to get to the end point. That's what sustains you, really."

Prof Tate's research career of 38 years has been based mostly at Otago, apart from brief forays offshore.

"Dunedin has a wonderful ambience for creative activity. It's provided me with everything for a fulfilling science career."

Prof Tate will receive the Distinguished Research Medal and deliver a lecture in November.