News 2023

December 2023: The bumper Christmas issue of the IRANZ newsletter is out now. It's chock full of the latest independent science research news from around Aotearoa New Zealand.

• Local research with global impact

• Lincoln Agritech joins Horizon Europe

• Malaghan: Trial results offer hope to Kiwis with incurable blood cancer

• MRINZ: Global study guides care of severely ill COVID-19 patients

• Sharing knowledge: Mātai Medical Research hosts symposium

• Cawthron-led research into hybrid species receives Marsden grant

• The Bat 1K Project and Bragato Research Institute

• Aqualinc: Is climate change impacting ground water nitrates?

• Taiuru: Māori being used as facial recognition ‘guinea pigs’ by MSD

• Scarlatti: To incentivise or not? Navigating the incentive dilemma

• . . . And much more.

Meri Kirihimete me te Hape Nū Ia from the team at IRANZ. Things don't get more kiwi Christmas than a kākā (Nestor meridionalis) in a pohutukawa tree. Photo: Louise Thomas.

December 2023: Follow the link for more details on the December 2023 news briefs from our Independent Research Organisations.

• Cawthron welcomes seven new scholars
• Bragato establishes Research Governance Committee
• Gillies McIndoe: Clara López Vásquez publishes paper as lead author in first 9-months of PhD
• BRANZ CEO Claire Falck writes about the value of renovating Aotearoa’s existing housing
• Meaning behind the new visual branding at Lincoln Agritech
• Dr Alisa Roddick-Lanzilotta joins Lincoln Agitech
• Researchers launch survey of recreational boat owners to inform biosecurity efforts
• Aqualinc: Will we have a drought this summer?
• Cawthron: Substantial contaminant reductions needed in NZ's freshwater sources
• Bragato: Working with wētā

Cawthron Institute has welcomed seven talented tertiary students to commence their highly sought after summer research placements. Photo: Cawthron Institute.

December 2023: ‘Local research with global impact’ could describe many of the offerings coming from Independent Research Organisations (IROs) in the past year. As we prepare a briefing for the incoming Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology, the Hon. Judith Collins, the growth of IROs as a significant player in the New Zealand Science System, the impact of their research, and the key role they play in increasing business expenditure on research and development (BERD) is highlighted.

With impact across the spectrum from local communities to global markets, IRANZ members and associates employ over 1250 staff and have a combined turnover of around $170 million p.a., with approximately $75 million of research investment from Government and $35 million from independent stakeholders. IRANZ also provides an independent voice for Māori research organisations.

So far this year we have welcomed a further five Independent Research Organisations to the Independent Research Association’s (IRANZ) fold – indicative of a thriving independent research sector outside of government.

Satellite image of New Zealand. Image: Xerra.

December 2023: How might water allocation methods need to change in response to a changing climate to give effect to Te Mana o Te Wai and the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020? was the question being addressed in a recently published research report, Agile, Adaptive Water Allocation Policy, a Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change – Adaptation project prepared for the Ministry for Primary Industries by Drs John Bright, Andrew Dark, Julian Weir, and Jane Alexander.

The authors write that having the agility to vary water allocations on a daily to weekly frequency in response to short-term variations in stream flow is critical to maintaining or improving stream-health and enables adaptation to a changing climate.

"This is important because short-term variations are expected to become more extreme and current extreme events more frequent."

They write that groundwater takes and surface water takes must be managed together – that is, integrated allocation management is required. "It is unrealistic to define allocation rules for each independently of the other and expect to be able to prevent surface water allocation limits being breached."

Photo: Aqualinc.

December 2023: There are two factors that influence how a vine grows: its genetics and its environment. The Bragato Research Institute’s Grapevine Improvement Programme investigates the genetic side, to learn more about resilience and new clones naturally occurring in our vineyards.

In New Zealand, every grapevine clone we currently grow originated in a vineyard, often because someone noticed something odd and collected it. BRI is collecting odd vines or ‘bud sports’ to add to the industry’s growing collection of grapevine diversity.

Carla Kissane-Rako is a Technical Viticulturist at Delegat’s Wairau Valley vineyards which span 550 hectares next to the Wairau River. Despite the vast number of vines under her care, Carla knows every row and there are a few vines that have caught her eye this season.

Like other viticulturists around the country, when she notices an unusual vine, Carla makes a record and keeps an eye on it over several weeks. If the ‘odd vines’ continue to develop, she submits a photo to "OddVine".

Three vines in this vineyard have developed variegated canes that produce yellow-green leaves, stripey stems, inflorescences and even stripey fruit. Photo: Bragato Research Institute.

December 2023: From reefs to rugged hillsides, scientists have been mapping the damage caused by Cyclone Gabrielle to help inform future decisions about where to build, and how storms impact the environment. This RNZ article by Kate Green includes work by scientists at the Cawthron Institute.

Ross Sneddon, a coastal environmental scientist with Cawthron, was part of a team tasked with mapping the Napier harbour, part of business-as-usual monitoring for the port's consenting process for dredging the harbour to deepen the approach for big ships.

But after the cyclone, it took scientists six months to get a clear three-day window to see anything around Pania Reef, thanks to all the sediment washed down the rivers into the harbour and continually churned up by large swells. They were scheduled to go in April, but in the end they were not able to get out there until late October.

"The real problem with scheduling the monitoring activities is due to variations in underwater visibility. It's a fairly swell prone open coastal site, and it's very often got low visibility," Sneddon said.

Cawthron coastal environmental scientist Ross Sneddon surveying Pania Reef. Photo: Scott Edhouse, Cawthron Institute.

December 2023: In New Zealand, road traffic fatalities make up around 30 percent of all worker fatalities and between 22-36 percent of the national road fatalities including workers, bystanders, and commuters. Similar patterns possibly exist for serious injury and minor injury crashes. As a result, work-related road safety is a strategic priority in New Zealand’s road safety strategy, Road to Zero.

A Mackie Research study using Safe System and socio-technical analysis methods to better understand crashes occurring while people are driving for work has recently been published in the ACRS Journal of Road Safety.

The research provides insights into work-related crashes, showing that failure across a greater number of Safe System components was associated with higher crash severity. Results also showed that the burden of injury from crashes is often borne by those not driving for work, including vulnerable road users. An AcciMap also showed how looking ‘upstream’ can point to areas we don’t typically focus on, such as fitness to drive procedures. The AA Research Foundation supported this study.

Photo: Rahul Pugazhendi, Unsplash.

December 2023: In a prime example of 'let's give this a shot,' WSP Research is gearing up to drill numerous holes in temporary traffic signs to assess their resilience in strong winds.

The theory being tested is that wind will pass through the holes – meaning the signs will experience less wind load and be less likely to blow over. Apart from school patrol lollipops, perforated signs aren’t used in New Zealand.

Part of the reason is that drilling small holes in sheet metal has been a long, manual process. But now, thanks to the latest computer numerical machining technology, it can be completed more efficiently and automatically.

There’s an important health and safety reason behind the testing. In windy conditions, temporary traffic signs often end up on the ground - requiring roadworkers to enter the road corridor to retrieve them.

Project lead WSP senior behavioural science researcher Joel Burton says decreasing the time spent on tasks such as picking up fallen signs in traffic is expected to significantly reduce the risk envelope for roadworkers.

Photo: WSP Research.

December 2023: After 14½ years leading Lincoln Agritech, CEO Peter Barrowclough has announced his resignation, saying his time at the research institute has been the most rewarding part of his career.

“I am so proud of what we have achieved together,” says Peter.

“During my time as CEO this company has grown from 35 staff and $5.5m turnover to around 80 staff and $15m turnover today. We have won a significant amount of MBIE funding, undertaken many science and engineering feats, and contributed to the store of knowledge. We have commercialised many technologies, and our science has had great impact.

“Throughout it all we have strived together as a team, and this has made Lincoln Agritech a great place to work.”

Peter’s last day in the role will be Friday 22 December. He is looking forward to starting the last phase of his career, concentrating on governance and consultancy.

The Board will appoint an interim CEO who will start in the New Year, before beginning the search for the next permanent CEO.

Dr Peter Barrowclough. Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

December 2023: Dr Karaitiana Taiuru from Taiuru and Associates elaborates on a recent RNZ interview about the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) rolling out Facial Recognition Technology for beneficiaries to self-identity online without the need to visit a MSD office, despite the well-documented racism and bias of the systems.

"The Ministry of Social Development’s decision is lacking a privacy, human rights, and ethics framework – though this was a must-have, it said, and with no consultation with Māori, a total disregard for international research and literature that shows the bias and racist way the technology impacts People of Colour such as Māori and Pasifika.

"It was also revealed by RNZ that the Facial recognition technology has failed half the time in tests of a landmark government system, adding to the costs, time and questions around it."

He also says that Google Analytics is being used in the system. "The way Google Analytics sends metadata back to the US for processing has fallen foul of regulators in Austria, Denmark, Italy, France, and The Netherlands this year."

December 2023: Incentives are becoming more common in research – Staff at Scarlatti know, they conduct hundreds of surveys and interviews per year. They also know that people’s time is valuable and that many industries are seeing ‘survey fatigue’.

Scarlatti Research Manager Julie Moularde writes about the problem in this Scarlatti case study. "When finding respondents becomes challenging, one solution is to offer an incentive. This might seem like the perfect golden ticket to fix your response rates, but should you be using them?"

Julie says that while offering an incentive can maximise participation and completion rates there are a number of factors to consider. When deciding whether offering an incentive is right for your research, she suggests asking yourself some key questions. A negative answer to any of them likely means an incentive is not recommended.

Firstly, do you have a sufficient budget for incentives? "Cost varies depending on incentive type, but your budget needs to allow for it. By estimating what you might save on recruitment, you could reallocate some of your budget toward incentives."

Graphic: Scarlatti.

December 2023: A cellular receptor, once notorious for its interaction with environmental toxins is now being investigated for its potentially critical role in supporting immune health.

Dr Jeffry Tang is a Senior Research Fellow working in the Gasser Lab at the Malaghan Institute. He specialises in nutritional immunology, studying how metabolites – molecules produced when food is broken down and absorbed by the body – affect our health. His research focuses on the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), a protein receptor found in a variety of cells across the body. A receptor is like a lock on the surface of or within a cell that can only be unlocked by specific molecules that fit into the receptor. When the right molecule binds to a receptor, it unlocks a particular action within the cell.

“Once a molecule binds to the AhR, the receptor and the molecule migrate to the nucleus, the cell’s command hub, where it has the ability to activate select genes,” says Jeffry.

The discovery of the AhR was made by research into why a class of environmental pollutants called dioxins is so harmful to health - including causing reproductive and developmental problems, damage to the immune system, and cancer.

Dr Jeffry Tang. Photo: Malaghan.

December 2023: Lincoln Agritech has joined one of the largest research programmes in the world, as a partner in a four-year Horizon Europe project.

Horizon Europe is the European Union’s key funding programme for research and innovation, with a total budget of €95.5 billion (NZ$173 billion) for its ninth seven-year cycle. In 2023 New Zealand became an associated country, meaning our researchers can join to establish and run research projects on equal terms with European partners and receive funding.

Lincoln Agritech has joined universities and research institutions from Greece, Austria, Italy, Belgium, France, and Lithuania on a project to develop a digital system to detect and provide early warning of plant diseases and pests. The Agricultural University of Athens, Greece, is leading the project.

Known as STELLA, the project has a budget of €5m (NZ$9m). It begins this December and finishes in December 2027.

Armin Werner, Lincoln Agritech’s Group Manager of Precision Agriculture, said the ability to join European colleagues on Horizon Europe projects was a welcome step for New Zealand researchers working on global problems. Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

December 2023: It’s flower picking season – but not as you know it. Recently, a group of Westpac NZ employees got down and dirty to help Cawthron scientists collect hundreds of tiny seagrass flowers from the Waimea/Waimeha Estuary.

The mahi is part of a three-year project led by Cawthron to restore New Zealand’s seagrass meadows as a way of supporting biodiversity, improving water quality and combatting climate change.

The Westpac NZ Government Innovation Fund is one of several business, government, industry and environmental groups that Cawthron has partnered with to deliver the project. Now in its second year, the project is successfully developing restoration techniques using seagrass seeds – something that’s never been done before in New Zealand.

This all starts with hand collecting seagrass flowers, which then get transported to the Cawthron Aquaculture Park at Glenduan where they are put into specially developed aquaria dubbed “seagrass spas”. A few weeks later – when they’re ready – the seeds fall from the flowers and then they are stored until it is time for germination.

Photo: Cawthron Research Institute.

December 2023: Some of the best scientific minds from New Zealand and overseas were in Gisborne to take part in a two-day symposium hosted by Mātai Medical Research Institute on 23 and 24 November.

Mātai chief executive and research director Dr Samantha Holdsworth says the goal was to share knowledge to accelerate innovations that improve quality of life.

The scientists, many of whom are leaders in their field, talked about topics such as ADHD, concussion, Parkinson’s disease, brain injury, heart research, and health models for Pacific people.

Dr Holdsworth said the symposium would serve as a catalyst for building strong interdisciplinary networks among professionals and the community to solve problems and innovate more quickly.

Neuroscientist Dr Jerome Maller talked about the rapid rise in the clinical use and validation of non-invasive brain stimulation techniques, particularly transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for the treatment of mental health disorders, such as major depression. Dr Maller, who is associate professor and clinical director for GE Healthcare and has nearly 20 years of experience in the field of TMS, presented an overview of this technique. Photo: Mātai.

November 2023: BRANZ’s Principal Social Scientist, Dr Casimir MacGregor, recently participated in a collaboration with Victoria University of Wellington to publish the research paper ‘The feeling of comfort in residential settings I: a qualitative model’, in the Buildings and Cities journal.

The project was led-by VUW’s Germán Molina and co-written by additional VUW researchers Michael Donn and Micael-Lee Johnstone. In the paper, the researchers propose a new qualitative measure, the feeling of comfort, to capture how comfortable people feel in their homes. Previous research has focussed on using quantitative methods.

This new qualitative method could potentially inform future building design and building science practice.

The authors also believe it may be able to capture, organise, and structure the psychology and subjectivity of comfort in a usable model, and so become a basis for policymaking, building performance analysis, and comfort research.

Casimir MacGregor has co-authored a paper presenting the results of a qualitative study aimed at understanding comfort. It introduces the 'feeling of comfort' model. Photo: BRANZ.

November 2023: Cawthron Institute has welcomed seven talented tertiary students to commence their highly sought after summer research placements.

Established in 2016 to support young scientists, the $7,500 scholarships provide students with 10-weeks of fulltime research at Cawthron.

All scholars are very high academic achievers, have contributed to community activities, and are strong advocates for the environment and science-led research. The 2023-24 scholars are:

• Nicole Parnell – Antarctica – Emerging Scientist Scholarship.

• Anna Sang – Simplicity in toxic cyanobacteria – Kathleen Curtis (Lady Rigg) Scholarship.

• Rose Sommerville – Niche shifts of freshwater fish– Emerging Scientist Scholarship.

• Claudia Mark – Using eDNA to identify lake stressors- Madge Johnston Scholarship.

• Matthew King – Ocean technology research – Emerging Scientist Scholarship.

• John Noble – Vaccines to boost shellfish resilience – Sir Theodore Rigg Scholarship.

• Sophie Whittall – Restoring Aotearoa’s seagrass – Emerging Scientist Scholarship.

November 2023: The Bragato Research Institute has created a Research Governance Committee to help maintain New Zealand wine’s premium reputation through innovation and a commitment to research that makes a tangible difference.

This group of industry experts will be focused on ensuring Bragato delivers strong value from science – responding to members’ evolving views on research needs and effectively transferring new knowledge to winegrowers – setting the industry up for long-term success.

The Research Governance Committee (RGC) will advise Bragato's Board and management directly on development and delivery of Bragato’s research strategy and its portfolio of research. It will provide feedback and recommendations on Bragato’s research strategy, research priorities, and the current and future research and investment plan. The RGC will also provide advice and support to help Bragato secure external research investment. RGC members will use their networks to suggest potential participants for Bragato's advisory groups, research-industry collaborations for research project delivery, and knowledge transfer.

Photo: Bragato Research Institute.

November 2023: Steel structures play a key role in various sectors from manufacturing to infrastructure, the energy industry, transportation, pressure equipment and more. One of the critical challenges to ensure the safety and reliability of such structures is addressing fatigue design, which can significantly impact performance and longevity - particularly at welded connections.

HERA has undertaken several research and educational initiatives to tackle these challenges.

Read a feature article about HERA's research in Builders and Contractors Magazine on page 30. The article also looks at their collaboration with University of Michigan's Professor Pingsha Dong, who is also a key collaborator on the Circular Design research project in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Endeavour-funded project Construction 4.0.

Current programmes include the seismic research programme focussing on the seismic performance of welded structures, an expert field often referred to as 'low cycle fatigue'. In addition, HERA has been developing recommendations to optimise welds for bridges subject to high cycle fatigue. Photo: HERA.

November 2023: Cawthron Institute welcomes news that a collaborative research project led by Dr Aisling Rayne has received a Marsden Fund grant. ‘Live or let die: Are hybrid species worthy of conservation?’ is a three-year research project that will investigate the diverse moral and social perspectives on hybrid species and their value in conservation policy and practice in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world.

This research will have important implications for the conservation of taonga (treasured) species of Aotearoa.

“We’ll be working with different communities to understand how people know, value and engage with hybrid species, as well as what values currently – and should – inform decision making processes about hybrids in conservation,” says Dr Rayne.

“These questions are becoming more urgent, as species are increasingly interacting due to human-assisted movement, climate change and habitat alteration.”

Hybrid ducks descended from both introduced mallard ducks and the rare native pārera/grey duck (pictured) have presented questions for Aotearoa New Zealand’s conservation sector. Photo: Louise Thomas.

November 2023: Climate change is having an impact in New Zealand and there are well-recognised issues including warming temperature and sea level rise, as well as the wider consequences, such as more extreme rainfall events and more prolonged droughts. There has been much focus on issues such as increased water requirements for irrigation or impacts on groundwater levels and hence on water availability, but the impacts on groundwater quality have had limited investigation.

Researchers at Aqualinc say whilst we can’t easily predict how the changing climate will affect how much nitrate ends up in our groundwater and surface water systems, we can observe how existing weather events affect the measurements we can make now. We do know that high winter recharge is associated with elevated nitrate concentrations, as shown by the response to the extreme weather events in May 2021 and July 2022 where monitoring showed elevated nitrate concentrations for considerable periods of time following the rainfall. Recent investigations in Canterbury have highlighted just how important rainfall, and particularly the onset of winter recharge, can be in terms of driving nitrate leaching.

Photo: Aqualinc Research.

November 2023: Bat1K researchers have been collaborating with the Bragato Research Institute to sequence the genome of New Zealand’s native bat.

Bat1K is an initiative to sequence the genomes of all living bat species, approximately 1400 species in total. The group aims to uncover the genes and genetic mechanisms behind the unusual adaptations of bats, essentially mine the bat genome to uncover their secrets.

The New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat (Mystacina tuberculata) stands apart from its bat counterparts around the world. Native to New Zealand and endangered, it holds the distinction of being the most terrestrial of all bat species. It is one of the few bats in the world that spends large amounts of time on the forest floor, using its folded wings as ‘front limbs’ for scrambling around.

Bragato's Oxford Nanopore PromethION Sequencer at their Grapevine Improvement Laboratory was the first high-throughput third-generation sequencer in New Zealand, as such, Bragato made the technology available as a service to other researchers from any field.

The New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat (Mystacina tuberculata). Photo: Colin O'Donnell, DOC.

November 2023: Throughout the winemaking process, it is possible for crystals to start growing in wine. While these solids are harmless and don’t typically impact the wine’s taste, they are considered undesirable and can cause a wine to be perceived as low quality. New research at the Bragato Research Institute aims to understand and predict the precipitation of calcium tartrate in wine and form guidelines to help prevent precipitation. To do this, a model of ion equilibria and precipitation in dairy has been adapted to wine.

"A previous PhD project at the University of Canterbury used thermodynamics and programming to model and predict the formation of precipitates such as calcium phosphate in milk. While wine and milk share differences such as the higher protein levels in milk and the ethanol and phenolic content of wine, some of the key components are similar," writes researcher Jack Muir.

Tests of the model on simple systems have been done to check if it matches experimental work, now the model will be tested to see how well it can predict crystal growth in real wines, with complex chemistry.

Jack Muir. Photo: Bragato Research Institute.

November 2023: New Zealand’s first trial of a ground-breaking cancer treatment called CAR T-cell therapy has shown the promise of being safer than leading commercial CAR T-cell products in treating certain types of blood cancer, while remaining effective.

The Malaghan Institute’s ENABLE phase 1 safety trial began in late 2019, in partnership with Wellington Zhaotai Therapies Ltd, treating 21 New Zealanders with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma who had exhausted all conventional treatment options.

Preliminary results were published online on 3 November in an abstract accepted for presentation at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting in San Diego. Importantly, none of the participants developed neurotoxicity or severe cytokine release syndrome – common side effects of some commercial CAR T-cell therapies. The trial also showed promising effectiveness, with around half of the participants’ lymphomas in complete response three months after receiving the treatment.

The Malaghan Institute ENABLE CAR T-cell clinical team. Photo: Malaghan Institute of Medical Research.

November 2023: RNZ's Kim Hill speaks to CAR T pioneer and BioOra board member Prof Carl June MD and Malaghan Institute Clinical Director Dr Rob Weinkove about the promising results of NZ's first CAR T-cell clinical trial, and the history and future of this ground-breaking cancer immunotherapy.

They are joined by writer and poet Michele Leggott, a participant in the trial, who is 12 months on from treatment. "I wake up every morning and say I'm well. There was a time I didn't think I'd have a 2023, and now I can look forward to 2024..."

The therapy reprogrammes a patient's own immune cells to recognise and kill cancer.

Michele Leggott / Dr Robert Weinkove / Prof Carl June. Photo: Malaghan Research Institute.

November 2023: As the world moves to more sustainable forms of energy, efficient rechargeable batteries are becoming more and more important.

At present the lithium-ion batteries used for everything from mobile phones to EVs include materials such as cobalt, which are in short supply and are also toxic to the environment.

New materials that are less expensive, less toxic, provide more energy for the same size, and make it easier to recycle lithium could bring sustainable energy a step closer.

Lincoln Agritech Research Scientist Joseph Nelson (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Raukawa) has just been awarded $360,000 from the Marsden Fund to find some of those new materials – using his computer.

“Finding new, improved materials that hopefully lead to more efficient batteries and lower environmental impact can happen in one of two ways,” says Dr Nelson.

Dr Joseph Nelson has been awarded a $360,000 Marsden Fund grant to search for new battery materials. Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

November 2023: The world’s largest trial of multiple interventions for critically ill adults with COVID-19 has simultaneously released results about two of its treatments, vitamin C and simvastatin.

Published on 26 October in JAMA and NEJM, and presented at the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine in Milan, the studies are part of the ongoing Randomized Embedded Multifactorial Adaptive Platform for Community Acquired Pneumonia (REMAP-CAP) trial.

Simvastatin, a widely available and inexpensive drug that is included on the WHO (World Health Organization) list of essential medicines, was shown to have a high probability (96%) of improving outcomes (a combination of survival and length of time patients need support in an intensive care unit) when started as a treatment for critically ill patients with COVID-19, and a 92% chance of improving survival at 3 months. This equates to one life saved for every 33 patients treated with simvastatin. 2684 critically ill patients were included at 141 hospitals across 13 countries, including in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Photo: Mufid Majnun, Unsplash.

November 2023: The latest IRANZ newsletter is out now. It's another interesting issue with the latest independent science research news from around Aotearoa New Zealand.

• Noho Marae furthers understanding of kaupapa Māori for IRANZ members

• Mātai: Cerebral palsy & muscle development

• Malaghan: Fruit and veges good for gut health

• Brain Research: The brain during microsleeps and mind-blanks

• MRINZ: NZ leads world in asthma management

• Gillies McIndoe: Treating meningiomas

• M.E Research moving forward on three Endeavour research programmes

• Cawthron celebrates 2023 Endeavour funding success

• Lincoln Ag to research effect of carbon dioxide on Waikato River

• Aqualinc: Time for a back-to-basics approach to water consents

• . . . And much more.

Dr Karaitiana Taiuru blogs about 'Te Tiriti o Waitangi Principles for Robotics'. Image: Taiuru & Associates.

October 2023 : Follow the link for more details on the October 2023 news briefs from our Independent Research Organisations.

• Welcome to new member DigiLab
• Gillies McIndoe: Leadership role changes
• Aqualinc: Nitrates in Groundwater and Impacts of Climate Change
• Cawthron: Nayland student excels at Scitec Expo
• WSP / University of Canterbury-led digital twin wins innovation award
• Lincoln Agritech: Road asset management technology finalist in KiwiNet Awards
• Bragato: Welcome to Braden Crosby
• Malaghan: Allergy development and the importance of fundamental research
• TTW visits Kew Gardens
• . . . and more.

Researchers at Aqualinc have been considering how the multi-layered impacts of climate change may require variations to future water allocation, as well as how long-term water management strategies can minimise the impact on the New Zealand economy while protecting its water and land quality. Photo: Aqualinc Research.

October 2023: Te Rereatukāhia Marae, in Tauranga Moana rohe, played host in September for the Noho Marae (overnight marae stay) for IRANZ members.

The Noho Marae, for CEOs and other senior science leaders, was part of the Ngā Mahi Ngātahi Project to promote Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). Funded by MBIE’s EDI Capability Fund, and led by Cawthron and Takarangi Research, the project aims to develop best practice EDI guidelines for the research and innovation sector in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Following on from an IRANZ survey of members’ current understanding and approach to kaupapa Māori (the philosophies and practices of being Māori, and the current and historical impacts of colonisation on Māori society), the Noho Marae was designed to improve members’ knowledge of the issues that relate to EDI in Aotearoa.

The themes that were covered included ‘Understanding Māori principles, concepts, and perspectives’; ‘Engaging with Māori communities’; and ‘Understanding Te Tiriti and its relevance to your organisation’.

IRANZ members and hosts at the Te Rereatukāhia Marae. Photo: IRANZ.

October 2023: The Sauvignon Blanc Grapevine Improvement programme is one step closer to achieving its goal of increasing the resilience of the New Zealand wine industry, with the completion of a reference genome.

Multiple audits of the wine sector have identified our reliance on Sauvignon Blanc and a lack of genetic diversity as one of the biggest risks facing our industry. The Sauvignon Blanc 2.0 project was launched in 2021 with the goal of producing a large population of new Sauvignon Blanc plants, some of which we expect to have beneficial characteristics for the New Zealand market. Importantly for our premium variety, this is to be achieved using methods that do not fall foul of varietal or genetic modification restrictions and which do not rely on the prohibitively expensive import of new plant material to the country.

Bragato Research Institute’s (BRI’s) Grapevine Improvement team has been building capability in cutting-edge genomic sequencing technologies and analytical methods.

Dr Annabel Whibley writes about her genomics research at BRI. Photo: Bragato.

October 2023: M.E Research, a leading independent economic consultancy and research provider that specialises in understanding the complex interactions between the environment, economic activity, socio-demographic patterns, and land use, is the co-science leads on two new Endeavour-funded research programmes, and a contributor in a third.

The new co-science lead research programmes are the Massey-hosted Pungapunga Auaha: Partnering with tangata whenua to develop a new low-carbon pumice economic sector for Aotearoa-NZ which has been granted $7.9m over five years, where Co-Director at M.E Research Dr Nicola McDonald is a co-science lead; and the Victoria University of Wellington-hosted Ngā Ngaru Wakapuke – Building resilience to future earthquake sequences (granted $12.6m over 5 years) where fellow Co-Director at M.E Research Dr Garry McDonald is a co-science lead.

In addition, Garry is also a research aim lead on the GNS-hosted Hazard, risk and impact modelling for fast moving landslides (granted $10.4m over 5 years).

October 2023: Irrigation in Canterbury began with large areas of border dyke, supplied by open-race schemes. In the early 2000s, this changed rapidly to spray irrigation, predominantly centre pivots. There is now very little border dyke remaining.

A number of irrigation schemes have converted from open race to pressurised pipe distribution, eliminating race leakage and by-wash losses. Overall, much less water is now being used to irrigate each hectare, with increased efficiency of water use.

On the face of it, increasing water use efficiency seems like it must be a good thing: less stress on our precious water resources, and more "crop per drop". A win-win surely? Unfortunately, the answer isn't that simple and requires a bigger-picture view of the catchments that irrigation is occurring in. International research on this issue concluded that increasing the efficiency of on-farm water use rarely results in less water being used at a catchment scale. There is also potential for unintended adverse consequences.

Photo: Aqualinc.

October 2023: Recent research from the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research is offering new insight into how fruit and vegetables might protect against inflammatory bowel diseases.

“These findings offer a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between our diet and immune health,” says Malaghan Institute Senior Research Fellow, Dr Jeffry Tang, from the Gasser Laboratory. The study is funded by the High Value Nutrition National Science Challenge, Ko Ngā Kai Whai Painga.

“It’s a significant step towards understanding and potentially developing dietary strategies to manage inflammatory bowel diseases.”

Over 20,000 people are afflicted with inflammatory bowel diseases in New Zealand alone. It refers to diseases characterised by chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, often caused by the over activation of immune cells in the gut.

For the immune system to maintain equilibrium in the gut, it must strike a delicate balance. It needs to be sufficiently active to effectively combat infectious diseases, yet not so aggressive that it induces inflammation in intestinal cells.

Dr Jeffry Tang. Photo: Malaghan Research Institute.

October 2023: In the quest to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and boost social outcomes, it can be hard for Aotearoa New Zealand’s urban communities to know where to start. Now, thanks to a new WSP research project, they can see what’s worked well elsewhere.

Led by WSP technical principal for social science Vivienne Ivory, the project mapped twenty-one studies of emissions reduction interventions across Australasia, Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia that also had community benefits.

The neighbourhood to city-scale interventions included urban greening, creating denser urban form, encouraging people to use cycling and public transport, using smart construction technologies, low emissions energy, and introducing more efficient wastewater and stormwater systems.

Commissioned by the Building Research Association (BRANZ) as part of its Transition to a Zero-Carbon Built Environment Programme, the project’s outputs are aimed at local and central government decisionmakers wanting evidence on what interventions may (or may not) work.

Image: WSP Research.

October 2023: Today, one in four licensed drivers are aged over 60. By 2028, one in four New Zealand drivers will be 65 years or older and as health technology improves and more people live longer, that number will increase. In the not-too-distant future, a third of the population will be in the 60 to 90 age group.

Recognising the significance of this, the AA Research Foundation commissioned WSP Research to investigate the implications of having more older drivers on our roads. The research involved looking at existing statistics, surveying older drivers, examining the implications for infrastructure and talking to driver training experts about the problems that older drivers face.

WSP Research Leader Bill Frith says the research debunks the myth that older people are higher-risk drivers.

In reality, he says, older drivers are involved in proportionally fewer crashes than middle-aged drivers. However, due to increased fragility, when they do crash they're more likely to get hurt than younger drivers.

Some older people find driving stressful. Photo: Andrea Piacquadio, Pexels.

October 2023: Gillies McIndoe Research Fellow Dr Matthew Munro is investigating how repurposed drugs can be used in the treatment of meningiomas, the most common benign brain tumour.

Meningiomas are typically treated with surgery; however, many cannot be completely removed surgically and require radiation therapy. Some meningiomas are high-grade and can invade the brain and resist treatment. Currently there are no chemotherapy options for meningioma.

Matt is examining whether any existing drugs can be repurposed to treat meningioma. He has been working in the lab treating meningioma cells from patient samples with off-patent Pharmac-subsidised drugs. The next phase of his research aims to provide an understanding of how the drugs affect invasion of meningioma by looking at the proteins and metabolites in treated cells.

Matt and PhD student Clara López Vásquez had a poster presentation at a recent Queenstown Research Week conference, and Matt will also be presenting his meningioma project to the neurosurgeons at Wellington Regional Hospital.

Gillies McIndoe Research Fellow Dr Matthew Munro. Photo: Gillies McIndoe.

October 2023: HERA's Structural Fire Research Engineer Dr Fanqin Meng has been researching the behaviour of steel in standard fires. He writes about some of his team's findings.

Steel columns are likely to expand vertically during a fire, resulting in an increase in internal force within the steel column. Due to material degradation in a fire, the column will likely buckle and fail quickly.

“However, previous research on the restraining influence of connected elements on steel columns has primarily focused on the point at which the column’s internal force returns to its initial value."

Research has primarily explored the structural fire performance of restrained columns during the expansion phase while neglecting their performance during contraction. "However, structural stiffness plays a significant role in limiting the vertical deflection of the column during contraction."

Fanqin writes that the current study aims to comprehensively investigate the performance of restrained columns in a fire.

Plastic deformation of steel at deflection limit. Image: HERA.

October 2023: Dr Karaitiana Taiuru researches Māori AI, data sovereignty, and emerging tech ethics. This month he blogs about 'Te Tiriti o Waitangi Principles for Robotics'. These principles have been adapted to general robotics for both the industry and research to better assist the industry to acknowledge Te Tiriti o Waitangi. If creating robotics for health, then there are nationally agreed Te Tiriti principles for health that should be used instead.

For researchers, these principles can be used as a guide for grant applications to meet Vision Mātauranga Māori and other criteria; and for developers as a high-level guide to ensure that robotics work will be culturally safe and recognise Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

If a robotics project is using Māori Data, then the Māori Data Sovereignty Principles should be used in addition to these principles.

"At this stage, community consultation is still being undertaken about AI from a te Ao Māori perspective."

Image: Taiuru & Associates.

October 2023: Cerebral palsy is the most common cause of physical disability for children in Aotearoa. An impairment in the developing brain either during pregnancy or shortly after birth leads to problems with movement and posture.

Radio New Zealand's Our Changing World programme recently interviewed Dr Geoffrey Handsfield of the Auckland Bioengineering Institute musculoskeletal modelling group. Geoffrey wants to understand what is happening in the muscles of children with cerebral palsy across time. To do this he is working with Mātai Medical Institute in Tairāwhiti on a longitudinal MRI study of children both with and without cerebral palsy.

He hopes to figure out how muscle development is impeded in those with cerebral palsy and perhaps find some clues for how to help.

Dr Geoffrey Handsfield is part of the musculoskeletal modelling group at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute. Photo: Mātai Medical Institute.

October 2023: As an employer, the first step to attracting and retaining people is putting forward your best offer. To do this, you need to understand what employees value most.

Scarlatti Director Adam Barker writes about the challenges many of New Zealand’s primary industries face in attracting and retaining people.

“In this job market, there are often more jobs than people available making the primary industry employment market an ‘employees market’ where potential employees sit in the bargaining position in terms of wage, location, benefits, and hours. A savvy potential employee could name their price.

"If employers understand how competitive their job offer compares to other similar jobs within their sector and other sectors, they can refine their offers to attract the best applicants... This means understanding what job factors (aside from wages) have the most influence on potential employees."

Adam details how the Scarlatti team worked with DairyNZ on their “Know the Market” project, an initiative to help dairy farm employers understand the competitiveness of their farm assistant job offers compared to employment opportunities in other sectors.

Image: Scarlatti.

October 2023: Dr Patricia Rubio-Reyes has been selected as a KiwiNet Emerging Innovator for her invention which advances cutting-edge CAR T-cell therapies.

Working in the Hermans Laboratory at the Malaghan Institute, Dr Rubio-Reyes has invented a mechanism to deactivate CAR T-cells after administration, effectively providing a safety switch to ‘turn off’ CAR T-cells if they have severe side effects.

Her invention also has wide-spread applications across other cell therapies, doubling up as a method that can be used to detect cells that have been genetically modified. She is currently in the process of finalising the patent.

As part of the year-long KiwiNet Emerging Innovator Programme, Dr Rubio-Reyes will be provided with financial support and mentorship to build industry connections and the knowledge needed to understand the commercial potential of her invention.

“After working in the lab for the last 14 years, I have found a new passion for commercialisation and this programme provides the tools for me to learn what happens between the lab and industry.”

Dr Patricia Rubio-Reyes. Photo: Malaghan Research Institute.

October 2023: BRANZ Senior Structural Research Engineer David Carradine and BRANZ Senior Materials Scientist Catherine Nicholson write about how new construction and design methods that save time and money while also meeting zero-carbon targets could be best used in the New Zealand building sector.

"Aotearoa New Zealand needs fast and affordable construction that supports the transition to a zero-carbon built environment. As efforts increase to develop and construct innovative, resilient and high-performing buildings and building systems, it is also critical to ensure we are making progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment. It is a delicate balancing act between innovation that we can trust and environmental wellbeing – but one that is very significant for all of us.

“Non-traditional building systems – a research project currently under way as part of the Transition to a zero-carbon built environment programme at BRANZ – seeks to provide an increased understanding of how to evaluate innovative and non-traditional building systems across a range of issues relevant to contemporary buildings."

Panellised systems can allow a building to be completed in days. Photo: BRANZ.

October 2023: The brain tries to quickly reestablish consciousness in times of potentially dangerous microsleeps and mind-blanks. PhD research at the New Zealand Brain Research Institute has observed the activity in the human brain.

A recent PhD graduate from the Brain Research Institute, Dr Mohamed Zaky, has had his work published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology.

Mohamed's PhD study was supervised by Prof Richard Jones, Dr Reza Shoorangiz, Dr Govinda Poudel, and Dr Le Yang. His project used multiple neuroimaging approaches to determine what happens in the brain during complete lapses of responsiveness, in particular microsleeps (instances of sleep for several seconds) and mind-blanks (when the mind simply goes away).

The publication covered an unexpected finding of increased high-frequency cerebral activity during microsleeps (complete losses of consciousness for several seconds). The team contend that this increased high-frequency activity reflects unconscious ‘cognitive’ activity aimed at re-establishing consciousness from what can otherwise be fatal microsleeps while performing an active task, such as driving.

Image: Brain Research Institute.

October 2023: Plant fungal diseases can be devastating for horticulture and agriculture – in the worst cases, wiping out entire crops.

But Lincoln Agritech scientists believe that altering the bacteria associated with disease-causing fungi will lead to new strategies to protect crops.

They have just won a $1m contract from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) to develop attenuated (weakened) variants of disease-causing fungi that can be used to prime plants and protect against fungal diseases.

“In previous research, we found that the bacteria associated with a fungus affect its ability to cause disease,” says Dr Jin Hua-Li.

“Our novel approach will make fungi unable to cause disease by changing the bacteria that are associated with the fungi.”

Working with scientists from Scion, Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and the Foundation for Arable Research, Lincoln Agritech scientists will test the concept on brassica plants (a genus of plants that includes cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli).

Dr Jin Hua-Li. Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

October 2023: The Waikato River is at the centre of a new multi-million-dollar programme aiming to reveal how increasing carbon dioxide (CO₂) levels are affecting rivers and lakes – and what that means environmentally, economically, and socially.

Lincoln Agritech is leading the new five-year, $10m research programme funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, studying how increasing CO₂ is changing the water quality of the Waikato River.

The aim is to develop a model that predicts harmful algal blooms in freshwater systems and the effectiveness of preventative measures.

“We know that increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide is making oceans more acidic,” says Dr Roland Stenger, Lincoln Agritech’s Principal Scientist, Environmental. “But we don’t know the impact of atmospheric CO₂ on freshwater. We think freshwater is acidifying faster than the oceans in some places, and where this is most pronounced, CO₂ could be driving other ecological changes.”

Waikato River. Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

September 2023: Cawthron Institute is celebrating the announcement that five of its bids for the 2023 MBIE Endeavour Fund round have been successful. Two Research Programme bids and three Smart Ideas proposals were awarded, making this Cawthron’s most successful contestable funding round to date.

Cawthron Institute’s Chief Executive Volker Kuntzsch says these results will enable science that has a significant real-world impact against some of the biggest challenges facing Aotearoa New Zealand’s environment, economy, and society.

“In a competitive funding environment where there are so many strong bids submitted, this result speaks to the innovation, collaboration. and hard work of our researchers, and I am thrilled for them,” says Volker.

“Our vision is to create a better future where ecosystems are healthy, communities are thriving, and we have a prosperous blue economy, and all of these successful bids enable research that supports those outcomes.”

Shellfish researchers at Cawthron Aquaculture Park. Photo: Cawthron Institute.

September 2023: In the September issue of Canterbury Farming Newspaper, Aqualinc's Dr John Bright talks about "Time for a back-to-basics approach to water consents".

John writes that getting water consents and complying with their conditions is a major headache for most farmers who irrigate. Going "back to basics" could simplify the process.

Simplifying water consents would make them easier to manage, for everyone, reducing costs; reduce uncertainty about what you can and cannot do and provide greater clarity about compliance; and enable longer-term consents, reducing costs for all parties.

"Under the Resource Management Act, you can’t take water and you can’t use water unless you have the necessary consents (unless the activity is permitted in some other way). Current practice for almost all regional authorities is to bundle everything up into a water 'take and use' consent.

"As pressure on rivers and aquifers has increased, so too has the complexity of the conditions included in each “take and use” consent."

Aquifer tests reveal local-scale impacts of water takes. Photo: Aqualinc.

September 2023: White wines that have been made in a highly reductive way, for example New Zealand Sauvignon blanc, can sometimes develop a pink colour on exposure to air - it’s a curious phenomenon known as “pinking.”

White wines are celebrated for their crisp and clear appearance, but pinking introduces a rosy hue. This colour anomaly can crop up during winemaking or after the wine is bottled, causing concerns for both winemakers and wine enthusiasts.

Researchers at the Bragato Research Institute say there are a couple of methods to detect and quantify pinking. "One approach employs a spectrophotometer, a device that gauges how light is absorbed by the wine at specific wavelengths. By doing so, you can determine if anthocyanins are present.

"Another technique features a colorimeter, a tool that assesses the wine’s colour changes based on different colour properties. This provides a numerical value reflecting the degree of colour shift.

"Yet, numbers aren’t the only indicators. Sensory analysis is also important. Visually inspecting the wine is a reliable tool to evaluate pinking’s presence."

Pinking in white wine. Photo: Bragato Research Institute.

September 2023: Mackie Research supported Auckland Transport (AT) to publish an article in the latest edition of the Journal of Road Safety on AT’s Mass Action Pedestrian Improvement programme.

Auckland’s road safety performance deteriorated significantly with death and serious injury crashes increasing by more than 70% between 2014-2017 compared to the previous five years. A fifth of all pedestrian related crashes in Auckland occurred at existing zebra crossings. In response, AT’s Mass Action Pedestrian Improvement programme upgraded 37 existing at grade crossings to raised zebra crossings between 2018/19 and more than 100 crossings have since been upgraded across the network. The paper discusses the research undertaken to inform the programme and how outcomes and impact were evaluated.

Overall, the evaluation showed that the programme delivered significant safety benefits and provided support for AT’s continued use of raised safety platforms at high-risk locations.

Image: Vittoriani Gabriel, Unsplash.

September 2023: A new environmental project that aims to understand both the current day and historical health and biodiversity of Lake Wairarapa was launched at the end of August. The Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa-led initiative, called Te Raranga Māramatanga me Ngā Tipu, will involve kairangahau (Maori researchers) and freshwater scientists from Nelson’s Cawthron Institute and GNS Science in Lower Hutt.

Ra Smith, Kaiwhakahaere Taiao (Environmental Manager) for Kahungunu ki Wairarapa says the project will use a combination of scientific techniques and mātauranga Māori to gain a deeper understanding of current water quality and biodiversity and how the ecosystem has changed throughout history.

“Our goal is to restore the lake, but the question is, ‘to what?’ To answer that question, we approached scientists at Cawthron Institute and GNS Science...”

Ngāti Kahungunu representatives travelled to Nelson following the mihi whakatau to visit Cawthron Institute’s laboratories and understand more about the scientific research that will be enabled by the project. Photo: Cawthron Institute.

September 2023: A key report published by the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINZ) has shown that Aotearoa New Zealand is leading the world in the adoption of a novel management approach recommended as optimal asthma treatment.

Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease that affects over 610,000 adults and tamariki in Aotearoa New Zealand, where we have one of the highest rates of asthma in the world. Reducing the risk of asthma attacks is the number one priority for the management of asthma in New Zealand and internationally.

In June 2020, New Zealand adolescent and adult asthma guidelines, published by the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New Zealand (ARFNZ), recommended that the budesonide/formoterol 2-in-1 combination inhaler, is the preferred reliever treatment for adolescents and adults.

The Patterns of Asthma Medication Use in New Zealand After Publication of National Asthma Guidelines study, undertaken by the MRINZ Asthma Programme research team, investigated whether these guideline recommendations were associated with changes in clinical practice indicated by asthma medication use trends.

Image: MRINZ.

August 2023: The latest IRANZ newsletter is out now. It's an interesting issue with the latest independent science research news from around Aotearoa New Zealand.

• Malaghan: Harnessing mRNA tech for powerful malaria vaccine

• MRINZ: Study of long-term symptoms in COVID offers new insights

• Verum Group: The cost of dust

• TTW seeks perspectives on genetic technologies and pest management

• Aqualinc: Quantifying and allocating NZ’s water

• Cawthron: Exploring microalgae as potential future food

• Lincoln Agritech: Different approaches to braided river research

• Motu: New guide to help NZ communities tackle major challenges

• Scarlatti: Are psychosocial hazards sabotaging your work?

• Taiuru: AI and Mātauranga Sovereignty

• Mackie Research: ‘Sorry mate, I didn’t see you’

• . . . And much more.

Previous El Nino conditions have caused severe drought in Canterbury. Photo: Aqualinc.

August 2023 : Follow the link for more details on the August 2023 news briefs from our Independent Research Organisations.

• Welcome to new member IGCI
• IGCI: Dr Yinpeng Li appointed to the CMIP-7 Data Access team
• Gillies McIndoe: Dr Swee Tan - In search of a better way
• Aqualinc: Sponge cities sound great but beware the unintended consequences
• Cawthron and Ifremer strengthen international collaboration with MOU
• WSP Research to pinpoint improvements to driver licensing
• Lincoln Agritech: Francelino Rodrigues keynote at Brazilian Plant Breeding Congress
• Xerra taking Starboard to Halifax
• Malaghan: HRC to fund study on the skin’s role in initiating allergic disease
• . . . and more.

In new research from WSP, researcher Jared Thomas says there are several possible reasons for people not accessing or progressing slowly through the driver licensing scheme. These include not having access to a car, not having someone to teach them how to drive, difficulty accessing testing stations in rural areas, or anxiety about the driving test. Photo: WSP.

August 2023: The science around workplace dust is always evolving, but without doubt repeated exposure to certain types of dust can be deadly. “Part of the problem,” says Verum Group’s Industrial & Workplace Monitoring Manager William Porter, “is that impacts aren’t necessarily instantaneous.”

“Disease caused by workplace exposure to dust is more common in New Zealand than workplace accidents. Hundreds of people still die each year here, essentially from dust exposure, and more are crippled with illness.”

William says that with modern technology available for workers, this type of disease-causing exposure can be prevented or very much reduced. Under the Health and Safety at Work Act, businesses in industries where dust is a concern have a duty to eliminate, or use controls to minimise worker exposure to dust.

“Respiratory crystalline silica, that is silica dust you wind up breathing in, can have incredibly small airborne particles, most of which you can’t even see, but they can get into your lungs and over time cause all sorts of health problems."

The types of industries where respiratory crystalline silica is a particular problem include quarrying, roading, construction, mining, and manufacturing. Photo: Natalie Comrie, Unsplash.

August 2023: Aqualinc's Dr John Bright recently led an expert panel that produced a think piece report Future Focused Freshwater Accounting for the Ministry for the Environment.

The report provides options and concepts for implementing accounting systems to support freshwater outcomes. It provides recommendations on how freshwater accounting systems can be used to understand the state of the environment, including whether objectives, limits, and targets are being met, and to provide consistent and transparent reporting of compliance with allocation limits.

The report recommends that while regional authorities should retain the responsibility for operating freshwater accounting systems and producing account statements from them, freshwater quality and quantity accounts should be presented in a standardised framework that is governed at the national level.

The Ministry is currently engaging with regional councils and other partners to discuss the findings of the report and options for potential changes to how New Zealand accounts for freshwater in the future.

Photo: Louise Thomas.

August 2023: Te Tira Whakamātaki (TTW) has partnered with researchers from Auckland and Otago universities as part of a project that explores perspectives on the uses of genetic technologies. Although the researchers are looking at attitudes and knowledge of genetic technologies in general, they are specifically examining how Māori view genetic technologies and have nested it within TTW's work on pest control (including how, when, and if it should be used at all).

TTW's Pou Whakahaere Whakamātau Programme Evaluator and Impact Manager Micheal Heimlick says they have a series of conversations coming up with hapori and whānau across the country, but to prepare for them they recently published a survey asking for the public’s thoughts on genetic technologies and pest control.

"We’ve received over 500 responses so far and the survey closes on 1 September. We both want to thank those who have participated and encourage those who have not to contribute their perspectives. TTW wants to engage in conversations around genetic technologies from an informed perspective and the more that we hear from our communities, the better.

An unwanted rat roams a park at a marine sanctuary on Wellington's west coast. Photo: Louise Thomas.

August 2023: HERA has recently released the second of their white papers arising from the $10.3 million Endeavour funded project Developing a Construction 4.0 transformation of the Aotearoa New Zealand Construction sector.

The second report, Public governance in the context of Construction 4.0: A systematic and comprehensive literature review, closely follows the release of HERA's first white paper in early July on the narrow and broad perspective of Construction 4.0. Both reports were prepared by Prof Jeroen van der Heijden who is working within the Technology Transfer theme of the project.

The new report provides a comprehensive review of the academic literature on public governance in the context of Construction 4.0, focusing on eight recurring themes: policy and regulation; infrastructure and investment; skill development and education; digital inclusion and access; collaboration and partnerships; data governance and privacy; interactions with environmental and societal goals; and the impact of Construction 4.0 on public governance.

The authors write that the construction industry has historically been hesitant to adopt new technologies, but the emergence of Construction 4.0 presents an unprecedented opportunity for transformation.

Image: HERA.

August 2023: Between 2010 and 2020 there were fifty-two fatal and serious-injury incidents at level crossings in Aotearoa New Zealand. In an effort to reduce these kinds of incidents, KiwiRail has commissioned WSP's Human Factors and Behavioural Science team to research how best to alter level crossings to reduce the likelihood of vehicle/train collisions.

The research is focused on incidents where drivers making a right-hand turn onto a level crossing fail to detect a train, leading to vehicle impact. An unfortunate example of this scenario occurred on 16 September 2020, when a bus turned right across Railway Road onto a level crossing at the Clevely Line near Palmerston North. The bus collided with a train. Sadly, the bus driver died at the scene and several passengers also suffered minor injuries.

The first part of WSP's research - an eye tracking study - is complete. This aimed to gather data on how drivers’ ‘stopping’ behaviour and ‘looking for trains’ behaviour changed depending on the type of level crossing infrastructure.

At rushed crossings with fast approaches, poor looking behaviours and less stop compliance was observed. Also, the more controls present at a crossing, the less likely drivers were to check for trains. Photo: Jad Limcaco, Unsplash.

August 2023: In a significant milestone for New Zealand’s first CAR T-cell clinical trial, partners at the Malaghan Institute and BioOra have started the clinical production of CAR T-cells using a new automated process – a shift that is key to scaling up this ground-breaking cancer therapy in New Zealand and “taking it to the people,” says Malaghan Institute Director Professor Graham Le Gros.

“This isn’t just a process change, this is a step change, it’s about democratising a cutting-edge cancer therapy that New Zealanders deserve to have access to, and reducing inequities in cancer outcomes.”

Malaghan Institute Clinical Director Dr Robert Weinkove says moving manufacture from a time-intensive manual process to an automated one will allow the team to manufacture CAR T-cells more consistently and at scale.

“This automation is critical to enable us to treat more patients – within our clinical trial programme at first and, we hope, as a future standard of care. This a huge milestone for our CAR T-cell programme, and demonstrating that this can be done here will put New Zealand among leaders internationally in this field.”

Photo: Malaghan Institute.

August 2023: New research from Motu Economic and Public Policy Research delves into expenditure patterns of retiree households in Aotearoa New Zealand.

In the latest year of analysis (2018/19), the average annual expenditure for retiree households was found to be $55,700. This amount was distributed across various categories, with 13% allocated to groceries, 19% to housing, and 14% to other necessities like household utilities, communications, and insurance. Remarkably, discretionary expenses accounted for the remaining 54%.

The analysis reveals that, on average, single retirees living alone spend $30,700 annually, while couple-only households spent a higher average of $65,100 per annum.

The researchers show a profound connection between subjective well-being and various demographic and socioeconomic factors. Retirees with higher qualifications, who own their homes, enjoy greater incomes, live with their partners, and have no dependent children tend to experience higher subjective well-being levels.

Couples spend more per capita but have higher wellbeing than singles in retirement. Photo: Towfiqu Barbhuiya, Unsplash.

August 2023: Biogenic carbon may be sequestered in growing trees that are, ultimately, harvested to form wood-based construction products. Through this mechanism – and assuming the trees are grown using sustainable forestry management practices – carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere for the period that it is fixed in a timber frame, glulam beam, plywood panel, or similar. These wood-based materials are not the only examples – other materials such as straw, hemp, and wool also contain biogenic carbon and can be incorporated into building elements.

BRANZ Principal Scientist – Sustainability Dr David Dowdell writes about biogenic carbon in this month's build magazine. He writes that biogenic carbon is released back to the atmosphere, primarily as carbon dioxide, when these types of building materials are combusted.

"Alternatively, when sent to landfill, some of the biogenic carbon content may be released to the atmosphere as methane – a shorter-lived and more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide – through decomposition.”

Multi-residential building assessment of greenhouse gas emissions grouped according to the biogenic carbon modelling approach and the building service life of the material in years. Image: Department of Construction Engineering, Université du Québec.

August 2023: Prior infection by a parasitic hookworm has been shown to protect mice from severe SARS-CoV-2 disease, offering a potential explanation as to why certain human populations seemed to fare better during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“This work stemmed from an observation that certain regions in the world didn’t fare as badly from the early days of the pandemic as you would expect,” says Malaghan Institute Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Kerry Hilligan who collaborated with colleagues at the National Institutes of Health, USA, on the study, recently published in Science Immunology.

“Countries throughout Africa and Asia were reporting fewer cases of severe infections, such as hospitalisations or death, much less than the rest of the world. This was the case even when accounting for some confounding factors in the data and lower reporting rates.”

“What’s interesting is that these regions strongly correlate or overlap with areas where hookworm infections are endemic – consistently present within the population. We think that perhaps this endemic infection by hookworms is causing a population-wide ‘interference’...”

Image: Malaghan Institute.

August 2023: Pinot noir is one of the most popular red wines in the world and is the second-largest produced wine in New Zealand, making up 14% of the total vineyard area and 4% of exports, however, it can be a challenging variety to make.

Wine polysaccharides are large polymers of simple sugars that are thought to influence many parameters that govern quality including, aroma, mouthfeel, and clarity. Present in both the cell walls of grapes and yeasts, they are released into the wine matrix during maceration, fermentation, and ageing processes. The final concentration and profile of polysaccharides are highly dependent on the variety, vintage, climate, and processing techniques employed.

A research group at the University of Auckland led by Prof Bruno Fedrizzi and supported by Bragato Research Institute have been investigating and profiling the polysaccharides in New Zealand pinot noir wines.

Recently the research group have studied the influence of the use of fermentative macerating enzymes during cold soaking on the polysaccharide profile of pinot noir wines.

Photo: Bragato Research Institute.

August 2023: Kat Gilbert from Mackie Research is evaluating an innovative trial run by Auckland Transport to address motorcycle and cycle safety at urban intersections.

Mackie Research provided human factors input into the motorcycle and cycle warning system which was then developed by Auckland Transport.

For treatment and control intersections on Dominion Rd in Auckland, data was collected at baseline and following yellow hatching only, before active warning signs were installed to warn turning drivers of oncoming motorcyclists and cyclists. The measures are now being repeated following the installation of the warning signs that are now active. The measures include road user speed and behaviour as well as different levels of interaction between cyclists/motorcyclists and other road users using a human factors framework. Focus Groups have also been conducted to determine how drivers are likely to perceive and react to the new signs.

The trial and research is due for completion in September and it will inform Auckland Transport’s road safety programme.

Link to study: Dominion Road bike and motorbike safety trial.

Dominion Rd in Auckland. Photo: Mackie Research.

August 2023: HERA, a leading provider of fire safety engineering solutions, recently announced the launch of a new numerical simulation research capacity in the structural fire area.

The new capacity will focus on the development of new fire safety technologies and the improvement of existing fire safety practices. The launch of the new research capacity is a significant development for HERA and for the fire safety engineering community. It will help to ensure that HERA remains at the forefront of structural fire research and that its solutions are based on the latest scientific knowledge. The new numerical simulation capacity is being led by Dr Fanqin Meng, who has extensive experience in the development and use of numerical simulation tools for structural fire analysis. Dr Kaveh Andisheh, who supervises the research and development in this area, also plays a crucial role in guiding the team towards achieving their research objectives. With their combined expertise and leadership, the team is poised to make significant advancements in the field of structural fire analysis and design.

SAFIR software can be used to study the behaviour of one, two, and three-dimensional structures subject to fire. Screenshot: HERA.

August 2023: The World Meteorological Organisation is predicting a 90% likelihood of El Nino conditions next summer, stating that “early warnings and anticipatory action of extreme weather events associated with this major climate phenomenon are vital to save lives and livelihoods.”

El Nino and La Nina are the two extreme ends of the El Nino Southern Oscillation, a fluctuation of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that occurs on a cycle of three to seven years. While some parts of New Zealand can experience drought under both El Nino and La Nina, the last two summers in Canterbury have been wetter than average, which has taken the pressure off for water users.

Dr Andrew Dark from Aqualinc writes that "while we don’t know for sure what the 2023–24 summer will bring, it is best to be prepared by managing water from the beginning of summer as if a drought is a certainty. Unlike floods, droughts can sneak up on us: we often don’t know we’re in one until it is well underway. Water users with annual volume limits on their resource consents will need to keep a close eye on water use, as there is a higher chance of limits being reached."

Previous El Nino conditions have caused severe drought in Canterbury. Photo: Aqualinc.

August 2023: Cawthron Institute Chief Science Officer Dr Cath McLeod and Ifremer CEO François Houllier have formalised a new strategic partnership between their two research institutes by signing a memorandum of understanding last month during a visit to Ifremer’s two facilities in Nantes and Brest.

The two leaders discussed the natural alignment of both organisations’ missions, which focus on healthy marine ecosystems and sustainable development of the blue economy. Both organisations have significant interests in supporting people and communities, with a shared interest in Pacific Island communities. Over the coming years, the two organisations will work closely to increase impact in securing sustainable food sources in the face of climate change and protecting and restoring the marine environment in the Pacific. Discussions with Ifremer’s international biotoxin expert Dr Philipp Hess and shellfish microbiology expert Dr Soizick Le Guyader paved the way for greater collaboration between the institutes on Harmful Algae Blooms and the food safety of aquatic products.

Cawthron Chief Science Officer Dr Cath McLeod with Ifremer’s Dr Philipp Hess. Photo: Cawthron Institute.

July 2023: A new mRNA vaccine targeting immune cells in the liver could be the key to tackling malaria, a disease that causes over half a million deaths each year according to the World Health Organization, yet has no effective long-lasting vaccine.

Trans-Tasman research collaborators from Te Herenga Waka— Victoria University of Wellington’s Ferrier Research Institute and the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in New Zealand, and the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Australia have developed an mRNA-based vaccine that can effectively target and stimulate protective immune cell responses against the malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium in preclinical models.

Ferrier Research Institute’s Professor Gavin Painter says the approach is distinctive, as the team leveraged years of prior research from the University of Melbourne’s Professor Bill Heath at the Doherty Institute and Professor Ian Hermans from the Malaghan Institute.

“Thanks to this synergy, we were able to design and validate an example of an mRNA vaccine that works by generating resident memory cells in the liver in a malaria model,” says Prof. Painter.

Photo: Malaghan Institute.

July 2023: The Cawthron Institute has teamed up with biotechnology nutrition start-up NewFish, and Nelson-based marine engineering firm Kernohan Engineering to explore the nutritional properties of microalgae.

The project will see around 100 strains of microalgae from Cawthron’s globally significant Culture Collection investigated for nutritional properties and ease of production that could open up new sustainable protein industries.

“The aim of this project is to identify the best microalgae strains, and then produce them at scale so they can be processed into alternative protein and other ingredients for functional foods,” says Cawthron Science Impact Manager Dr Johan Svenson.

“There are thousands of microalgae species and within each species there are multiple strains, yet only a few strains have been studied in depth. Cawthron Institute is home to a treasure trove of more than 600 species in our microalgae Culture Collection, so we are potentially sitting on a lot of untapped opportunity."

Cawthron Bioactives Team Leader Andy Selwood with Minister for Oceans and Fisheries Rachel Brooking. Photo: Cawthron Research Institute.

July 2023: Scientists on two different sides of the world are working to understand the dynamics of braided rivers and their interactions with aquifers, using two different approaches.

Lincoln Agritech’s Scott Wilson and Antoine Di Ciacca, together with Dresden-based colleague Thomas Wöhling and University of Canterbury PhD student Alice Sai Louie, set out to understand how braided rivers recharge regional aquifers, to improve water resource management. Their work is part of a five-year project funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment.

Meanwhile, in Lyon, France, researchers saw that in braided rivers a significant part of the water flows through the subsurface, which has high ecological importance. They wanted to understand the dynamics of that flow.

The different starting points have led to different research strengths.

The Lincoln Agritech team visited Thomas and Moritz Kraft at Technische Universität Dresden, Germany, to plan and coordinate their joint work on modelling the Selwyn and Wairau rivers. From left, Thomas Wöhling, Antoine Di Ciacca, Alice Sai Louie, and Scott Wilson at Technische Universität Dresden. Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

July 2023: Open ocean oyster farming is one step closer to becoming commercially viable thanks to a new trial as part of a national open ocean aquaculture research programme. Cawthron Institute researchers are leading the five-year MBIE-funded Ngā Punga o te Moana research programme. They are collaborating on this trial with Moana New Zealand, Stainless Concepts, and Whakatōhea Mussels Ltd who have deployed the new trial structures on their marine farm off the coast of Ōpōtiki.

Programme leader Dr Kevin Heasman says open ocean farming will be necessary to support the growth of Aotearoa New Zealand’s aquaculture industry ambitions and its resilience in the face of increasing environmental pressures, including climate change.

“As waters warm and the farming space available in-shore fills up, we’ll need to extend further off-shore and this will require new methods of farming and new technologies.”

The new trial sub-unit being deployed off the coast of Ōpōtiki on industry partners Whakatōhea Mussels’ marine farm. Photo: Cawthron Research Institute.

July 2023: Evelyn Hyde is a senior research officer who is taking a deep dive into the specific cells and molecules involved in the development of allergies, bringing us closer to a future where allergies can be better understood and managed.

Evelyn joined the Malaghan Institute in 2005 and has been part of the Ronchese Laboratory since 2009. Her work focuses on understanding the early stages of allergy development, particularly the role of dendritic cells, a type of immune cell.

“Dendritic cells collect molecules that the body is exposed to and present them to other parts of the immune system,” says Evelyn.

“The dendritic cell is thought to teach a part of the immune system called T-cells whether the fragments it collects are a threat or not and instruct T-cells on the specific type of response that should be mounted if those fragments are encountered again in the future.”

Evelyn's research is trying to decipher the signals received by dendritic cells to understand the immune responses they trigger and how this might lead to allergies.

Senior research officer Evelyn Hyde. Photo: Malaghan Institute.

July 2023: The Health Research Council of New Zealand has granted the Malaghan Institute’s Ronchese Laboratory $1.2 million to better understand the crucial role immune cells in the skin play in initiating allergic diseases.

The project, ‘Plasticity of the skin IL-13+ innate lymphoid cell niche,’ comes off the back of earlier Health Research Council-funded research in which the Ronchese lab made the ground-breaking discovery that the skin is constantly prepared to trigger allergic responses – marking it as ‘ground zero’ for allergic disease.

“The aim of this project is to study the impact of immune responses on a specific type of immune cells called type 2 innate lymphoid cells, in both mouse and human skin,” says Malaghan Research Fellow Dr Sotaro Ochiai. “Under normal conditions, these cells produce a chemical signal called interleukin-13 (IL-13). Our recent research has shown that IL-13 plays a crucial role in the development of pro-allergic skin dendritic cells.”

Dr Sotaro Ochiai. Photo: Malaghan Institute.

July 2023: New research by the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINZ), in partnership with Te Whatu Ora, has examined long-term symptoms in COVID-19 cases, looking at the physical and mental health of Greater Wellington region study participants, almost two years after their illness.

"The long-term impacts of COVID-19 on confirmed cases at least 12 months post-infection in Wellington, New Zealand: an observational, crosssectional study" has been published in the July issue of The New Zealand Medical Journal (NZMJ).

Dr Nethmi Kearns, MRINZ Clinical Research Fellow and COVID study lead, and her team of researchers, examined symptoms and laboratory abnormalities in just under half of the confirmed cases of the 2020 alpha/beta variant of community COVID-19 cases in Greater Wellington. Through eight comprehensive surveys and blood sample analysis the team led an observational, cross-sectional study looking at symptoms that continue after initial COVID-19 illness.

A positive COVID-19 test. Photo: Louise Thomas.

July 2023: Motu Research has just released a new guide to help communities and organisations run their own just transition processes in response to challenges like climate change, rapid technological change, employment changes in regions and the transition to renewable energy in a way that fairly shares both the positive and negative effects.

Building upon widespread efforts already underway in Aotearoa, the guide offers practical ideas, methods, tools and case studies so communities can lead processes of change when facing environmental or social disruptions.

“Our communities can help drive positive change because they have a deep understanding of what is happening, how it is impacting on people and what solutions will work,” says Catherine Leining, a Motu Policy Fellow and co-lead for the project.

Janet Stephenson, a co-author from the University of Otago, says, “People in Aotearoa New Zealand feel strongly about fairness. And that's what the ‘just’ in ‘just transitions’ is all about. It is about working together to make sure the big changes we all see coming happen in a fair and equitable way.”

July 2023: WSP researchers have recently launched an online survey to gather information on people's experiences accessing and progressing through Aotearoa New Zealand’s driver licensing system.

Commissioned by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, the survey aims to pinpoint the most common barriers and best solutions to support those struggling to access and progress through Aotearoa’s graduated driver licensing system.

WSP's researchers are especially interested in hearing from people who have encountered obstacles while navigating the licencing process, and those who have found it difficult accessing support.

WSP researcher Jared Thomas says there are several possible reasons for people not accessing or progressing slowly through the driver licensing scheme. These include not having access to a car, not having someone to teach them how to drive, difficulty accessing testing stations in rural areas, or anxiety about the driving test. Photo: WSP.

July 2023: Questions and actions regarding workplace wellbeing and psychosocial hazards are on the rise. But what is meant by psychosocial risks, and how can you take action for a healthier workplace? Scarlatti's Senior research manager Dana Carver explores psychosocial hazards in the workplace.

Psychosocial hazards are defined by WorkSafe as ‘the aspects of design and management of a workplace, that have the potential to cause psychological or physical harm’. Psychosocial risks and hazards in the workplace can result in stress, burnout, office politics, isolation, and impact employee wellbeing and productivity.

"For example, high sedentary demand is a psychosocial hazard that would be high risk for an office job but not a risk for a job such as farming. Wellbeing encompasses good physical health and good mental health. Wellbeing is not simply defined by the absence of disease or illness, but a holistic depiction of one's quality of life – the ability to contribute to the world with a sense of meaning and purpose."

Image: Scarlatti.

July 2023: In May, Dr Karaitiana Taiuru of Taiuru & Associates presented at the prestigious Gibbons Lecture Series and was hosted by the School of Computer Science at the University of Auckland.

He shares his thoughts about how Māori are at a crossroads in human evolution, and that AI could be used to decolonise and empower Māori.

However, he warns that all Indigenous Peoples including Māori are on the brink of being colonised again with AI if they are not a part of the ethics, initial planning, and decision-making processes, as beta testers and codevelopers, throughout the entire life cycle of generative AI from inception to deployment and then in a monitoring capacity.

His talk discusses the positive impacts of generative AI with te reo Māori and future considerations for Māori Peoples with generative AI in traditional settings such as marae and pōwhiri.

A video of his talk is available on YouTube on the University of Auckland channel.

July 2023: Speed limit reductions, cycleways, and clear markings are typically associated with improving road safety, but did you know they could also pave the way for more people to ditch their cars? Recent research from WSP has shed light on the benefits of these kinds of interventions, highlighting how they could be crucial in encouraging a shift towards more active modes of transport.

A team led by WSP technical principal for behavioural science Jared Thomas was commissioned by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency to understand how effective safer journey interventions are in encouraging ‘mode shift’.

Mode shift sounds more like a button you’d find on a TV remote or gaming console. But in the world of transport planning, it’s about encouraging people to get out of cars and use healthier, more sustainable transport modes - like public transport, cycling, and walking.

“The evidence we found shows that if we create safe environments that encourage and support alternative transport options, people are more likely to choose these options over driving,” says Jared. Photo: WSP.

June 2023: The latest IRANZ newsletter is out now. It's an interesting issue with the latest independent science research news from around Aotearoa New Zealand.

• IRANZ: Post-Budget statement

• Mātai: Can brains bounce back?

• MRINZ: Landmark pre-hospital study

• Malaghan: Unleashing the potential of molecular biology in cancer therapy

• Motu: The economics of free speech

• WSP Research reveals speeding, near misses, and abuse

• Lincoln Agritech: Science with Impact – Annual Report 2022

• Bragato: Tuned vines

• HERA receives $150k of funding from BRANZ

• BRANZ: Aotearoa’s National Adaptation Plan

• Aqualinc: It's time to talk about water storage

• Dragonfly: Interactive map shows community impacts of adverse weather

• . . . And much more.

Cawthron Labs have announced the opening of a new facility in Auckland. Photo: Cawthron.

June 2023 : Follow the link for more details on the June 2023 news briefs from our Independent Research Organisations.

• Interns get chance to shine at Lincoln Agritech
• Scarlatti: Internships a win-win for interns and business
• NZBRI: Grant to investigate Parkinson's hallucinations
• $715k donation to Mātai as QET winds up
• Verum Group’s William Porter on NZOHS council
• HERA’s new 2023 Whanake Scholarship recipient: Brock Colson
• Aqualinc: Future Focused Freshwater Accounting
• Bragato Research: Hearing from New Zealand’s winemakers
• Gillies McIndoe Research Institute: New chapter
• . . . and more.

Interns Léa Cabrol (left), Tijmen Krijen (centre), and Josselin Blanchard are enjoying being able to put their knowledge to work at Lincoln Agritech. Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

June 2023: Ever wonder exactly how the environment in Central Otago makes Pinot Noir taste different to that grown in Martinborough, even though the vines are the same before they’re planted? If all cells in a plant have the same DNA, how do some form leaves, some roots, and others berries? A big part of the answer is ‘epigenetics’: signals from within the plant, and from the environment, change which of the tens of thousands of genes in a cell are turned on at any time.

"Tuned Vines" is a two-year research project run by Bragato Research Institute’s Grapevine Improvement team. The project aims to demonstrate ways to manage grapevines by turning specific genes ‘on or off’.

The potential outcomes from this project could help vineyards adapt to the changing climate. Some of the hypothetical ways that this knowledge could be used include, priming grapevines to increase their hardiness ahead of a drought, or delaying sugar ripening of the grapes if temperatures were sweltering.

The Grapevine Improvement team is working on identifying epigenetic markers of environmental stress in grapevines – such as which genes react when the grapevine is in drought conditions or very cold weather. Photo: Bragato.

June 2023: Motu, along with Victoria University of Wellington, recently published research analysing the types of people who benefit most from freedom of speech. The research found people with more resources place greater priority on freedom of speech. However, people with fewer resources (i.e., lower incomes or education levels) benefit most from free speech. The results support the hypothesis that free speech empowers those with fewer resources than those with greater resources.

The researchers write that the two results are not incompatible: people with fewer resources may need to prioritise basic needs more than ‘luxuries’ such as free speech but, being in marginalised populations, they may still benefit most from having freedom of expression.

The researchers conclude that even though survey evidence for stated preferences indicates that free speech is a luxury good, regimes which increase freedom of speech (on average) simultaneously raise the subjective wellbeing of more marginalised members of society relative to those with greater resources.

June 2023: A Gisborne-based research project by Mātai Medical Research is using MRI scanning to study the impacts of methamphetamine in the brain. New Zealand is among countries with the highest use of meth globally, with wastewater data showing this is concentrated in rural towns in Northland, the Bay of Plenty, and Hawkes Bay - all areas which have high Māori populations.

The project is called 'The Mātai meth recovery study', and early data is showing changes to the brain are potentially reversible.

RNZ Nine-to-Noon presenter Kathryn Ryan speaks with principal researcher Miriam Scadeng, Associate Professor at The University of Auckland and a Lead Principal Investigator at Mātai Research, and community advocate Tuta Ngarimu, Manager at Manaaki Moves Trust, who has himself overcome a meth addiction and is now on a mission to give back to his community.

Community advocate Tuta Ngarimu, Manager at Manaaki Moves Trust. Photo: Tuta Ngarimu.

June 2023: Dr Andrew Wilson is bridging the gap between research and clinical laboratories, paving the way for advances in diagnostics and cancer therapy.

Andrew conducted his PhD with the University of Otago in the Weinkove Laboratory at the Malaghan Institute. His goal was to forge connections between academic research and techniques used in clinical diagnosis. In doing so, he has developed a new method to ensure the safety of cell and gene therapies, including the CAR T-cells used in the Malaghan Institute’s own clinical trial programme.

"My PhD aimed to merge academic and clinical practices, tapping into the potential of molecular biology to advance the safety of cancer therapy," says Andrew.

Armed with advanced molecular biology techniques, Andrew sought to understand the process of converting a patient’s own immune cells, called T-cells, into CAR T-cells. This involves inserting genes that allow the T-cells to be able to target cancer cells.

Dr Andrew Wilson. Photo: Malaghan Institute.

June 2023: A ground-breaking study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, conducted by researchers from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, and Germany, has raised a challenging question — In the event of severe injury, would individuals want to receive a treatment which reduced their probability of dying but also increased their risk of surviving severely disabled?

The Pre-hospital Antifibrinolytics for Traumatic Coagulopathy and Haemorrhage (PATCH-Trauma) Study focused on the use of tranexamic acid (TXA), a readily available drug known for its ability to limit bleeding during surgery. The research examined TXA's effectiveness as a pre-emptive measure for patients at risk of life-threatening bleeding following trauma, an area of ongoing controversy.

The PATCH-Trauma Study, coordinated in New Zealand by the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINZ), is a large trial in which treatment was administered at the scene of an accident or injury, or in an ambulance. Over the course of eight years, 1310 severely injured patients received treatment from 15 ambulance services and 21 trauma centres across New Zealand, Australia, and Germany.

June 2023: Slowed down by roadworks, most drivers’ first thought is ‘how annoying’. Rarely, if ever, will they stop to consider the safety of workers holding the Stop / Go sign or placing orange road cones. But they should, because new research from WSP has revealed a concerning number of speeding, near miss, and abuse incidents at roadworks sites.

Carried out as part of a project for Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, a WSP research team surveyed 316 temporary traffic management (TTM) workers about their experiences on site.

It’s no secret that working on or near roads is a high-risk activity. Safe flow of traffic through roadworks involves measures like signage, barriers, and reduced speed limits. At times, those on the frontline are exposed to the risk of passing traffic.

Over half of survey respondents experienced aggression or abuse from drivers. And the consensus view from TTM workers is that drivers aren’t following temporary speed limits.

Photo: WSP.

June 2023: As passengers on the Kāpiti rail line north of Wellington admire the view from their carriages, they may not be aware that the line's steep coastal cliffs are now under constant real-time monitoring for potential slips - no matter the weather.

Instrumentation experts from design and engineering firm WSP have worked with KiwiRail over the past eighteen months to install a network of geotechnical sensors. It’s all to help the notoriously slip-prone stretch of line run as smoothly and effectively as possible.

Twenty sites have been equipped with monitoring equipment along a 25-kilometre-long section of the North Island Main Trunk between Paekākāriki and Plimmerton. The system combines slope movement and debris sensors, rain gauges, soil moisture metres, and night vision cameras. It monitors ‘over-slips’, where debris from above can fall onto the track, and ‘under-slips’, which can occur below the track.

The sensors have all been set with an alert threshold. If triggered by slope or debris movement, a notification is sent to KiwiRail field engineers, train controllers, and WSP.

Night vision camera image from the sensing set-up. Photo: WSP.

June 2023: HERA reports that it has received $150K funding from BRANZ, funded by the building research levy, to support the $772K project titled “Circular design for a changing environment: a design framework to reduce construction waste, lifecycle embodied carbon, and to enhance the circular economy for construction materials, with a pilot for low-rise buildings”.

HERA reports that there is significant confusion in the market about the embodied carbon at the different stages of a building’s life. "Carbon calculators are emerging prolifically, but they only tell a one-dimensional story about CO₂ equivalent emissions per mass of particular products, with a focus on either the Cradle to Gate or Cradle to Practical Completion

This is in spite of MBIE’s commitments to consider and target opportunities to realise the whole of life carbon reductions and announcements that relate to the Building Act being modified for better reporting. By having a better understanding of the source and contribution of the embodied carbon from each Module and consideration of how design influences choice of material and vice-versa, it may be possible to design a truly carbon efficient sustainable building.

Image: HERA.

June 2023: BRANZ Principal Social Scientist Casimir Macgregor writes about the first National Adaptation Plan (NAP) in the latest edition of build magazine. The plan sets a path forward as to how to develop resilience to climate change, but he says it could be more inclusive of the construction industry and consider the impact of climate change on human behaviour.

New Zealand has recently experienced the impact of a changing climate with the devastation caused by Cyclone Gabrielle and the associated flooding and storm damage in Hawke’s Bay, Gisborne, Coromandel Peninsula and Auckland.

"The IPCC’s 2023 report highlighted that rising greenhouse gas emissions due to human actions have created a rise in global surface temperature that was 1.09°C [0.95°–1.20°C] higher in 2011–2020 than 1850–1900.

"While changing the way we do things to emit less greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming is a critical step, we must also accept that there are uncertainties that come from our changing climate that must be addressed."

Casimir says a greater understanding of human behaviour can influence the success of the NAP’s implementation. Photo: Jonathan Ford.

June 2023: Lincoln Agritech’s Annual Report for 2022 highlights the impact its science is having in areas such as climate change, fresh water and groundwater, and environmental sustainability.

Titled Science with Impact, the report details a trial to slash herbicide use in vineyards, ground-breaking work on understanding the dynamics of braided rivers, and a trial showing real-time information on groundwater nitrates, among other research projects.

Chief Executive Peter Barrowclough said the company undertook some “amazing research”.

“Concerns about climate change, food security, and the environmental impact of farming, horticulture, and forestry are growing, showing we need to redouble our research efforts to address these existential issues.”

Lincoln Agritech Chairman Bruce Gemmell said the report gave a glimpse into the national and global impact the company’s research was having.

Science with Impact – Annual Report 2022. Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

June 2023: Aqualinc Hydrologist Dr Helen Rutter writes about the rules for small drinking water suppliers in the June issue of Canterbury Farming Newspaper.

"If you own or operate a water supply that is being used as drinking water by people outside your home (for example, a farm property with multiple dwellings supplied by a single source), you are a drinking water supplier and will have responsibilities to meet the Drinking Water Quality Assurance rules.

"These create new responsibilities for huge numbers of small suppliers who have previously not had any formal rules to follow.

"The new regulations have caused a great deal of concern for many people who are, understandably, worried about responsibilities and costs. Whilst there are definitely new responsibilities, complying with the new regulations is actually going to be simpler than many people realise.

"The new drinking water regulator, Taumata Arowai, has worked with many water users and suppliers, as well as with industry bodies such as Irrigation New Zealand, to come up with solutions for small suppliers that are practical to implement."

June 2023: Our immune system protects us from infection and disease throughout our life. Like us, it grows and evolves as we encounter new and familiar infectious organisms. In a similar vein, as we age, the immune system also ages, becoming less efficient and effective.

One of the most significant changes is that the older immune system responds less effectively to vaccines, producing fewer protective antibodies, offering less protection to disease. Why this happens is only just starting to be understood, with Cambridge’s Babraham Institute leading global research into the fundamental biological changes of an ageing immune system. And in a new research collaboration with the Malaghan Institute, funded by the UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, there is hope that the ageing immune system can be revitalised. The partnership aims to hone in on ‘germinal centres’, a unique immunological structure that forms in response to an infectious organism, and use RNA technology to improve its performance.

Dr Theresa Pankhurst (left) and Dr Michelle Linterman. Photo: Malaghan Institute.

June 2023: The Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall highlights the importance of investing in science to boost Aotearoa New Zealand’s economic advantage. IRANZ strongly endorses this. Budget 2023 positions the New Zealand economy for a low-emissions, high-wage future with a major investment into our science, digital, and horticultural technology sectors. It includes provision for:

• Three new multi-institution hubs to increase collaboration in research and science;

• Major investment in science and scientists; and

• Fellowships and funding to develop more than 260 future science leaders.

IRANZ commends this investment in the Future Growth of Research Science and Innovation in the budget.

In particular, we support the new Science and Innovation hubs. When they are established, we expect them to include investment in Māori research infrastructure and support Mātauranga-led research.

The Wellington-based hub focused on health and pandemic readiness already involves IRANZ member the Malaghan Institute.

May 2023: Work by Dragonfly Data Science featured on TVNZ's 1News on Sunday 28 May.

"A new mapping tool that combines satellite data with demographic and infrastructure information has been launched in New Zealand.

"The tool, created by Dragonfly Data Science, could help with the response to future natural disasters.

"The map uses satellite imagery to show areas affected by flooding, slips and silt, and pairs it with detailed information about the communities in those areas.

"It provides information about schools, hospitals, supermarkets, farmlands and roads affected by disasters.

"Sadhvi Selvaraj, a data scientist at Dragonfly, told 1News that the tool provides timely and relevant information for decision-makers to support response and recovery in an equitable way."

Dr Sadhvi Selvaraj was interviewed on TVNZ 1News.

May 2023: Verum Group’s National Laboratory has something new and glowing. Mike Young, Verum Group’s National Laboratory Manager, has recently overseen the installation of a LECO 828 Series Combustion Analyser for detecting carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen, with an S832 add-on for independent sulfur determination.

Mike says the new equipment replaces an old instrument that needed continual maintenance.

“We’ve always produced quality results - Verum is trusted for it, but it’s now a lot easier. I’ve also seen a significant improvement in throughput."

Materials the team can analyse include woodchip, pellets, biochars, coals, mineral samples, soils, sediments, fertilisers, and waste streams such as plastics, rubbers, and oils.

“In the past we have looked at paunch grass, DAF solids, peat, and plant waste from greenhouse growing operations as well as the more normal fuel materials."

Verum Group Fuels Chemist John Cameron tests a sample in the new LECO combustion analyser. Photo: Mike Young, Verum Group

May 2023: Cawthron Laboratories, the analytical testing arm of Whakatū Nelson’s Cawthron Institute, has announced it will open a new analytical testing laboratory in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in mid-2023.

Cawthron Laboratories offers customers a broad spectrum of food testing and product analysis services.

Located in Māngere, the new facility expands Cawthron Laboratories’ service capacity and supports existing efforts to provide a full spectrum of testing services to customers in any part of the country.

Cawthron Laboratories Manager Paul Parker says this expansion builds on the strong relationships Cawthron already has with customers in the North Island and creates opportunities for new customers by increasing confidence in the accessibility and reliability of their testing services.

“Opening a North Island laboratory is an exciting new chapter for us and one that will help us forge new relationships in the North Island.”

A laboratory technician watches a sample being analysed by machine. Photo: Cawthron Institute.

May 2023: Motu's Arthur Grimes appeared on a recent CNBC documentary on the origins of a 2% inflation target. If you're curious about the current economic landscape and want to stay informed, this is a must-watch.

The 2% inflation target is key to the Federal Reserve’s vision for stable prices. But, where exactly did this 2% inflation goal originate? Aotearoa New Zealand. In the late 1980s, the country faced high inflation when one economist proposed, ’Why don’t we just have an inflation target?”

U.S. declared its 2% inflation target in 2012. According to the International Monetary Fund, Canada, Australia, Japan and Israel are among the many economies that include 2% in their inflation rate targets.

In the documentary, some economists argue for changing the target, lower or higher, and predict whether it may change anytime soon.

Inflation, the rising cost of goods and services over time, is a topic that affects us all. It influences our purchasing power, savings, and even investment decisions.

May 2023: The ArchEngBuild Challenge is an intensive 3-day competition for New Zealand tertiary students studying architecture, engineering or construction management.

Now in its tenth year, ArchEngBuild brings together New Zealand’s future industry leaders. Thirty of the country’s best architecture, engineering, and construction management students take part in this intensive 3-day real-life client brief competition held this year in Wellington.

They work together to deliver a concept design in response to a project brief. The project brief addresses issues faced by industry and allows the students to come up with creative and innovative solutions.

The event is being held in late August at the Wellington Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation / Te Wāhanga Waihanga-Hoahoa, with the winning team receiving a $7,500 prize, awarded at a prize-giving event at the end of the competition.

Final-year students can nominate themselves, or tertiary education providers can nominate students, with submissions closing on 16 June 2023.

May 2023: A Guardian article by Tess McClure examines research by Mātai tracing signs of healing in the brains of a group of former addicts.

"Every few months, Cohen “Coey” Irwin lies on his back and lets the walls close in. Lights move overhead, scanning over the tattoos covering his cheeks. He lies suspended, his head encased by a padded helmet, ears blocked, as his body is shunted into a tunnel. The noise begins: a rhythmic crashing, loud as a jackhammer. For the next hour, an enormous magnet will produce finely detailed images of Irwin’s brain. Irwin has spent much of his adult life addicted to smoking methamphetamine – or P, as the drug is known in New Zealand.

"He knows its effects intimately: the euphoria, the paranoia, the explosive violence, the energy, the tics that run through his neck and lips."

Cohen Irwin has spent years addicted to smoking methamphetamine. Now, he's working with scientists to understand how it's affected his brain, and try to stop. Photo: Tess McClure/The Guardian.

May 2023: In the May issue of Canterbury Farming Newspaper, Aqualinc's Director Dr John Bright explains "it's time to talk about water storage development."

The variability of water supply from week to week, month to month, and year to year means that many parts of New Zealand have a mismatch between supply and demand in most summer months.

For most parts of Canterbury this hasn't been an issue for the past two irrigation seasons, but we know well from past drought years that it will be a challenge we will face in the future. Climate change projections show the challenge becoming even greater due to increasing water demand, lower river flows in summer months, and increasing month-to-month variability.

Strategic water studies over the past 20 years consistently show that water storage is a key strategy to address this water supply reliability problem. Improvements in irrigation efficiency, alone, will not solve it.

Dr Bright writes that water storage of the capacity required is not without controversy. Lake Wanaka. Photo: Eyrie Photography.

May 2023: Dr Bibek Yumnam is a Senior Research Officer working in Professor Graham Le Gros’ lab investigating the interplay between parasites and our immune system. He uses his background in conservation of endangered species to offer unique insights into parasites and what they represent to our global ecosystem and health.

The basis of Malaghan's hookworm therapy programme is the concept that having hookworms in our body may dampen down overactive immune responses typical of allergic and inflammatory diseases. Specifically, Bibek is working on the Malaghan’s hookworm clinical study to develop the methodology to produce therapeutic hookworms in a safe and standardised way.

“To really understand why we are doing this research we have to look into the life cycle of hookworms in the natural, pre-industrialised world,” says Bibek. “Their life cycle is inextricably intertwined with us humans.”

"Our bodies are an ecosystem and until recently, parasites have always been a part of this ecosystem," says Dr Bibek Yumnam. Image: Malaghan.

May 2023: Dragonfly Data Science's work with the Social Wellbeing Agency produced an interactive map of cyclone impacts overlaid with infrastructure and demographic data.

The map demonstrates the crucial role that data has played in identifying the land and community characteristics of areas impacted by adverse weather in early 2023. It’s the first time these two approaches have been combined for New Zealand. The map is also supporting planning for the response and recovery.

Aphra Green, Deputy Chief Executive, Policy, Data and Insights of the Social Wellbeing Agency (SWA) Toi Hau Tāngata says the agency had built a demographic explorer with community information, but being able to combine this with geospatial data was a big advantage.

Screenshot of the interactive map showing impacts on Meeanee and Awatoto in the Hawke's Bay. Image: Dragonfly Data Science.

May 2023: New Zealand has 26,559 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc vines, and the way grapes are propagated renders the vast majority of these vines genetically the same - potentially any new pest, disease, or environmental change that affects one vine could affect them all.

Bragato Research Institute and its partners, Lincoln University and Plant & Food Research, have begun a seven-year research programme to produce diverse variants of Sauvignon Blanc to help New Zealand’s $2 billion wine industry become more resilient.

This growing season, the programme has produced 6,000 new variants.

“Plants have the natural ability to become more genetically diverse in response to environmental stress, and this knowledge was used to produce a population of vines with unique traits,” says Principal Scientist Dr Darrell Lizamore. “Since this doesn’t involve crossings with other vines, the plants are still Sauvignon Blanc, and the new variants are fully formed at the first generation.”

May 2023: Prostate cancer is the most common cancer for men in Aotearoa and Tairāwhiti has adopted a global best-practice method to perform prostate biopsies.

A prostate biopsy is a procedure to remove samples of suspicious tissue from a man’s prostate. The tissue is then looked at under a microscope to check for cancer.

Through a new clinical partnership between Te Whatu Ora and Mātai Medical Research Institute, since November last year more than 21 Tairāwhiti men have had MRI-guided, transperineal, prostate biopsies under local anaesthesia in an outpatient setting.

Dr Daniel Cornfeld, head of radiology at Te Whatu Ora in Tairāwhiti and Mātai Clinical Lead, said Tairāwhiti was the first site in Australasia to use this specific Koelis Trinity system technology to perform the procedure in an outpatient environment.

“The new technology will provide an equitable service which will uplift prostate outcomes for our local men, especially Māori and men living rurally,” Dr Cornfeld said.

Mātai Clinical Lead, Dr Daniel Cornfeld. Photo: Paul Rickard/Mātai.

May 2023: What happens to a building and its individual components when subjected to the kinds of extreme stress, impact and vibration that an Aotearoa New Zealand home might face during its lifetime? BRANZ can now answer that and similar questions more efficiently and in greater detail with the opening of a new structures laboratory at its Judgeford campus.

BRANZ’s structural tests assess whether building systems and products are fit for purpose and comply with the Building Code.

The new lab allows BRANZ to build complex structures as large as a 3-storey building and exert forces on it from two different directions simultaneously, as might occur in an earthquake. The bigger space also means more tests can run concurrently. ‘It gives us the flexibility to assess a wide variety of new building materials, systems and products as they are developed,’ says BRANZ Structural Testing Team Leader Simon Faulkner. ‘We have double the load and stroke-bearing capabilities of our previous facility,’ Simon says. ‘It means we can shake buildings harder and faster than ever before.’

May 2023: It’s near impossible to get good data on water use in New Zealand. This raises questions about public accountability, write Motu Research Analyst Thomas Benison and Julia Talbot-Jones (Motu Affiliate) in a recent issue of The Conversation. The article is based on their own experience of collecting data from the local councils for a Motu Research project on urban water pricing use in Aotearoa.

"As New Zealand’s new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins embarks on reprioritising policies to focus on 'bread and butter issues', the details of the contentious Three Waters reforms remain unclear.

"The reforms represent a radical reshaping of water, wastewater and stormwater management, with the aim of building a new integrated system across New Zealand. The legislation passed in December last year, but the PM has promised a 'reset'."

Whatever the final details, a study conducted by Motu highlights the need for improved environmental reporting to help deliver urban water supply security.

April 2023: The latest IRANZ newsletter is out now. It's an interesting issue with the latest independent science research news from around Aotearoa New Zealand.

• Aqualinc: Helping govt agencies and growers use water wisely

• Cawthron: Not too late to save our lakes

• BRANZ: Restoring a home after flood damage

• Verum Group: New addition to Atarau Sanctuary

• Bragato: Delving deep into genomes

• Lincoln Agritech: App to count fruit a success

• WSP: Getting people out of one and two-star cars

• Motu: The wage cost of a lack of access to affordable childcare

• Brain Research Institute: Coffee consumption and Parkinson's

• . . . And much more.

Dr Susie Wood (Cawthron Institute) and Dr Marcus Vandergoes (GNS Science), co-leaders of the Lakes380 Programme. Photo: Cawthron.

April 2023 : Follow the link for more details on the April 2023 news briefs from our Independent Research Organisations.

• Malaghan: Funding boost for RNA research
• Bragato: Cyclone impact on vineyards
• Dragonfly Data Science supporting safer cycling in Wellington
• Cawthron: Nelson-based ocean cluster to accelerate blue economy
• Gillies McIndoe: Glioblastoma cancer studies
• 2023 Cawthron Marlborough Environment Award winners announced
• . . . and more.

The Malaghan Institute of Medical Research and the University of Otago are supporting a new government-funded Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) Development Platform, to be co-hosted by Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Auckland. Dr Kjesten Wiig of the Malaghan Institute and Professor John Fraser of the University of Auckland are the interim co-directors of the platform. Image: Malaghan Institute.

April 2023: Aotearoa New Zealand has high-quality but expensive childcare. Access to suitable and affordable childcare is a prerequisite for labour force participation for many mothers. Motu's recent paper uses data from the Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal study to investigate how the lack of access to childcare affects mothers’ work.

The report, by Thomas Benison and Isabelle Sin, finds that many mothers whose young children are not in childcare (due to a lack of childcare access) report being prevented from working by childcare access issues. However, just over a fifth of mothers whose children are not in care due to access issues do work, and some mothers whose children are in care still report they cannot work due to childcare issues.

By combining information on mothers’ work status and reasons for not working with earnings data for working mothers of young children, the researchers estimate New Zealand mothers with children under age three who are not working only because they can’t access childcare may be foregoing $116 million or more of wages each year.

April 2023: Meet the newest addition to the Verum Group-sponsored Atarau Wildlife Sanctuary. Last Wednesday, Verum Group Director Luc Bohyn took delivery of very precious cargo – a great spotted kiwi/ roroa chick hatched at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve.

Willowbank Wildlife Kiwi Team Keeper Bethany Brett and Luc gave the provisionally-named Xanthe a final weigh to make sure it had gained weight before carefully crating the chick for its journey across the Southern Alps to join other great spotted kiwi youngsters at Atarau. Kiwi chicks initially lose weight after they hatch as they use up the yolk sac contents over the first week or so before they start eating.

Willowbank Wildlife Kiwi Team Keeper Bethany Brett gives the great spotted kiwi chick a final check before it is crated for its journey to Atarau. Photo: Louise Thomas

April 2023: A New Zealand cancer immunotherapy biotech has entered a multi-million dollar commercial deal with leading international pharmaceutical company Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd for an exclusive license to its unique CAR T-cell technology in India.

Wellington Zhaotai Therapies, a joint venture between the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research and Hunan Zhaotai Medical Group, was established in 2017 to take Hunan Zhaotai's novel CAR T-cell technology to the global market. In 2019 after further development at the Malaghan Institute, a phase I safety trial, ENABLE, got underway in New Zealand. Results of the trial are due to be published later in 2023.

Wellington Zhaotai Therapies Executive Director Peter Lai says the agreement is an inflection point for Wellington Zhaotai Therapies and reflects the successful partnership between the two research teams in New Zealand and China.

April 2023: Aqualinc Director Dr John Bright featured on the cover of this month's Irrigation Leader magazine. John was interviewed for the lead article where he discusses Aqualinc's work helping farmers prepare for a future of more stringent regulations and less predictable rainfall, and assisting water infrastructure managers and government agencies to make wise, environmentally sustainable decisions about water use.

"The availability of water depends not just on what’s flowing in a river or aquifer but on the rules that government agencies put in place to regulate access to the water. It’s likely that agriculture will have less access to water in the future than it does now. Further, when we look at the expected effects of climate change, the month-to-month variability will likely increase. Those factors are going to exacerbate the supply and demand imbalance. Clearly, water storage is a key strategy to address that problem."

Dr John Bright on the cover of Irrigation Leader magazine.

April 2023: It’s not every day you get to see glowing green cells, but this represents an important milestone in the work of Gillies McIndoe's PhD student Dr Sam Siljee.

Sam’s research focuses on better understanding the biological pathways used within cells when healthy lung tissue changes to cancerous lung tissue. This information will help him identify the potential use of drug repurposing in lung cancer treatments.

To identify the biological pathways cancer uses within cells, he must grow cells in a dish and use a model to mimic cancer-like changes in cells and block the p53 gene (tumour suppressor gene), known as the guardian of the genome (complete set of genetic information).

The model used to mimic cancer-like changes is called lentivirus transduction. In this model, the RNA (Ribonucleic acid) from the lentivirus will transfer into the healthy cell and block p53. The glowing green cells indicate that the model used is successful and usable in his study.

Photo: Dr Sam Siljee, Gillies McIndoe.

April 2023: A great survey does more than collect valuable insights, it provides survey participants with a survey experience that captures their attention and guides their thinking. We know that maintaining participant engagement leads to better quality data and makes for happier participants, but how do we keep people engaged?

Scarlatti's Research Manager Mel Escott explores surveys and offers three tips for creating an engaging survey. These are "Bring your audience on board"; "Create a two-way conversation"; and "Use thought-provoking question design".

"People are much more engaged in activities that interest and impact them specifically. You want to capture your audience from the beginning and convince them why completing this survey is important. To achieve this, briefly outline what the survey will involve and the direction it will take. This details, at a high level, the narrative. Good design is empathetic."

Image: Scarlatti.

April 2023: Dr Karaitiana Taiuru from new IRANZ member Taiuru & Associates Ltd has recently blogged a think piece about the potential impact of AI on te ao Māori.

He writes that Māori Data Sovereignty is now more crucial than ever, with Dr Pratik Desai, a Silicon Valley computer scientist who has founded multiple Artificial Intelligence platforms, boldly predicting that a human being’s “consciousness could be uploaded onto digital devices by the end of the year [2023]”.

"There are already reported scams of AI impersonating people’s voices based on as little as 30 seconds of audio. I predict that Māori media personalities and te ao Māori leaders will be targeted en masse to scam our own whānau, marae, hapū, and Iwi."

"Future breaches of tikanga will create new issues for whānau, hapū and Iwi, and for Māori individuals over their own rangatiratanga of their physical body and thoughts after death."

April 2023: A Stuff article on 12 April about the link between environmental factors such as coffee consumption and Parkinson's cites Parkinson's epidemiology numbers and research by the New Zealand Brain Research Institute. The upshot of the article is that numerous studies have found that coffee drinkers develop Parkinson's disease later than those who don’t. Although the institute cautions that one needs to be careful with the correlation between factors such as coffee consumption and Parkinson's: a correlation does not imply causation. This is one of the many factors NZBRI's Parkinson's Environment and Genes Study (PEGS) is investigating.

The PEGS research is investigating the genetic, environmental exposures, and other lifestyle factors associated with Parkinson’s disease, particularly within a New Zealand context. The research will provide a unique insight into local risk factors and possible protective factors and will help further understand the causes of the disease.

Photo: Fahmi Fakhrudin.

April 2023: A new research report from WSP Research, commissioned by Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency, has found most owners of one and two-star cars either don’t know or overestimate how safe their vehicle really is.

That's one of the key findings behind a range of recommendations in the report, titled Getting people out of 1- and 2-star cars. Waka Kotahi is using the recommendations to inform ongoing work to improve vehicle safety and reduce the number of people being killed or seriously injured on our roads.

These include efforts to educate owners and potential purchasers of less safe cars, as the evidence shows we are twice as safe in a five-star vehicle than a one-star vehicle.

As part of the research, WSP behavioural and road safety researchers asked over 12,000 owners of one and two-star cars in Aotearoa New Zealand if they were aware of their car’s safety rating.

Auckland Motorway. Photo: WSP.

April 2023: Over the past month, Bragato’s viticulture team have been out harvesting fruit from trials across multiple vineyards. It isn’t just to collect viticultural data on yield, these grapes head to Bragato's Research Winery so their research can cover the entire process from vineyard to finished wine.

Grapes were harvested for both commercial trials and Bragato’s research, including a comparison of long spur with 4-cane pruning, mealybug management options, and testing the principles behind Bragato's upcoming Next Generation Viticulture programme.

Harvest at Bragato is slow, detailed work. All the trials are handpicked from specific vines, keeping those grapes labelled so bunches can be counted, the production of each vine weighed, and sometimes berries individually counted and assessed for disease.

The viticulture team are collecting Sauvignon Blanc pruned with Long Spur pruning at Rarangi Vineyard in Marlborough. Photo: Bragato Research Institute.

April 2023: What do jumping genes, vintners, and a supercomputer have in common? They are all part of a high-tech project that REANNZ (Research and Education Advanced Network New Zealand) has been working on with the New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI).

Scientists and researchers have teamed up with REANNZ and NeSI to bring a new device to New Zealand that can unlock the tightly held secrets of naturally occurring organisms, from microbes to hops.

The PromethION genome sequencer offers users high-output, high-throughput sequencing of RNA and DNA. It’s being used here in New Zealand as part of a collaboration between Lincoln University, Bragato Research Institute, REANNZ, and NeSI.

Two research projects are already set to benefit from the new technology.

PromethION genome sequencer. Photo: Bragato.

April 2023: Dr Alissa Cait is a postdoctoral researcher working in the Gasser Lab to uncover the relationship between the trillions of microorganisms in our body, called our microbiome, and immune health. From her research, she has gleaned some fascinating lifestyle insights.

“I’m really interested in how factors such as the food we eat or the environment we’re exposed to affects the populations of bacteria in our microbiome and how this then affects our immune function,” says Alissa.

The microbiome is no small part of the body. It is estimated that about 2-3kg of an average person’s body weight is microbiome.

“Each part of our body is a niche environment which hosts a unique array of microorganisms. This can include bacteria, viruses, fungi, and even certain parasites,” says Alissa.

Dr Alissa Cait. Photo: Malaghan.

April 2023: Ten years after completing his PhD at the Malaghan Institute, Dr Marcus Robinson recently returned to share the research he currently conducts as a Senior Research Fellow at Monash University in Australia.

“I remember the journal clubs we had at the Malaghan, which were always full of hearty discussion. You had to be sure to prepare by reading the paper beforehand, as the PhD students would be called on at random to present figures from the study. It was a refinement by fire, or at least it felt like it! It proved invaluable training in the longer term,” says Dr Robinson.

With Professor Graham Le Gros as his supervisor, he investigated what can make milk proteins allergens.

Originally from Whanganui, Dr Robinson came to the Malaghan Institute to do his PhD after studying at Victoria University. Photo: Malaghan.

April 2023: A biologist who found her passion through a school project that won a Cawthron Marlborough Environment Award is nearing the end of a 20-week scholarship working on sea grass research and restoration around Nelson’s estuaries.

Demi Fearn is one of seven tertiary students who gained a place on Cawthron’s 2022/23 summer scholarship programme.

“About half way through last year as uni was coming to an end, I was figuring out what I wanted to do next and I saw the scholarship advertised. I thought ‘wow – this is so me’.”

Demi’s scholarship saw her mentored by scientists from Cawthron’s Restoration Ecology Team, working on a seagrass restoration project.

Demi Fearn surveys a seagrass study site in Nelson estuary. Photo: Alison Ballance.

April 2023: Five years after commencing the biggest survey of lake health in Aotearoa New Zealand’s history, Lakes380 Programme leaders at Cawthron Institute and GNS Science say there has never been a stronger call to action for New Zealanders to work together to improve the health of our lakes.

“Unfortunately, the news isn’t good, with the results of our surveying and modelling revealing that over 80% of lakes in the North Island and 45% nationally are in poor or very poor health,” says programme co-leader Dr Susie Wood of Cawthron Institute.

These results align very closely to the findings of the Our Freshwater 2023 report, released by the Ministry for the Environment and Statistics New Zealand on 12 April, confirming the seriousness of the challenges facing Aotearoa New Zealand’s lakes.

A team of over 70 researchers sampled 10% of Aotearoa New Zealand’s lakes during the five year research Programme. Photo: Lakes380.

April 2023: A study from design and engineering firm WSP commissioned by the AA Research Foundation (AARF) has found that new road bypasses in Aotearoa New Zealand are significantly improving crash and injury statistics. According to the study's findings, the bypasses are resulting in fewer motor vehicle accidents and injuries compared with surrounding areas.

The study looked at seven new bypasses constructed between 2009 and 2016 – Auckland's Northern Gateway, Tauranga’s Eastern Link, Wellington’s Mackays to Peka Peka Expressway, the Waikato Expressway, and bypasses in Cambridge, Ruby Bay, and East Taupō.

WSP compared before and after crash statistics in ‘areas of interest’ using data in Waka Kotahi’s Crash Analysis System (CAS). The areas of interest included the new bypasses, the old roads and associated intersections.

Photo: WSP Research.

April 2023: He missed out on the top prize, but Dragonfly Data Science CEO Dr Finlay Thompson was one of four finalists in the business category of the 2022 Dominion Post Wellingtonian of the Year Awards announced on 29 March. The awards recognise individuals who are making significant contributions to the Wellington region.

“I’m delighted to have Dragonfly’s achievements acknowledged by our peers in the Wellington community. I’m particularly proud of the networks we’ve established across government, research, academic and business sectors.”

Under Finlay’s leadership, Dragonfly has grown from 19 to 30 staff and associates, and added several large international contracts to its New Zealand client base.

Dr Finlay Thompson was a finalist in the business category of the 2022 Dominion Post Wellingtonian of the Year Award. Photo: Dragonfly Data Science.

April 2023: HERA has recently published a new guide, HERA Report R4-155 – Optimised Sliding Hinge Joint (OSHJ): Design and Installation Guide for a Low Damage Seismic Resisting System, which introduces a number of significant updates for seismic design using structural steel with sliding hinges in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The report has been authored by Dr Shahab Ramhormozian and Prof G. Charles Clifton from the University of Auckland.

Low-damage seismic solutions not only improve building resilience and people’s safety in an earthquake, but also have a significant role in facilitating structural steel reuse afterwards. Additionally, the OSHJ provides a low-damage, highly seismic resilient, versatile, and cost-effective seismic resisting connection option for Moment Resisting Steel Framed (MRSF) buildings.

Optimised Sliding Hinge Joint (OSHJ): Design and Installation Guide for a Low Damage Seismic Resisting System. Photo: HERA.

March 2023: A new clinical study facilitated through the Cawthron-led ‘Musseling Up’ research programme has confirmed that Greenshell mussels can help reduce knee pain in post-menopausal women.

Researchers at Massey University carried out the study, finding that after 12 weeks of taking mussel powder, participants reported significantly less joint pain in their knees. The study has been published in the global journal Frontiers in Medicine.

The scientists concluded that taking the mussel powder may slow down the degradation of type II collagen in post-menopausal women who have knee pain or discomfort.

Musseling Up Programme lead Dr Matt Miller says the benefits would equally apply to whole mussels and other mussel products.

Dr Matt Miller, Leader of the High Value Nutrition National Science Challenge-funded 'Musseling Up' research programme. Photo: Cawthron.

March 2023: How do children’s brains work and how do their bodies move? For millennia, medicine has often viewed children as adults in miniature – but this may not be so.

In a world-first, researchers from the Mātai Medical Research Institute and the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) have created a roadmap to mimic and analyse the structure and function of children’s brains, hearts, lungs, and musculoskeletal systems. The models developed from this work may pave the way to benchmark normal paediatric structure and function enabling more accurate diagnoses and tailored treatment for children in New Zealand.

Over 30 researchers contributed to the first phase of the study. Dr Haribalan Kumar, Mātai Research Engineer and GE Healthcare Clinical Scientist says scanning “head to toe — in the same session — for the same child” is a world first.

Kahu Potter, 11, prepares for a detailed whole-of-body MRI scan to help scientists better understand child development and build models based on advanced imaging. Photo: Mātai.

March 2023: In the April issue of Canterbury Farming Newspaper, Aqualinc's Matt Bubb talks about why it's important to test your effluent pond, to make sure it's not leaking.

He writes that most dairy effluent storage pond owners believe that their ponds are not leaking, particularly those that have been synthetically lined.

"However, even with synthetic lining, it is not possible to be sure that the pond is not leaking without carrying out a test. Therefore, it is important for dairy farmers to have their effluent storage ponds tested to ensure that they are not leaking."

One of the drivers for proving that effluent storage ponds are not leaking, is the need for farms to operate at a minimum of Good Management Practice (GMP). Ideally the farming operation should be operating at better than GMP.

Accurate testing is essential to insure that effluent ponds are meeting the required standards. Photo: Aqualinc.

March 2023: Cawthron is a founding partner of Moananui, a new organisation based in Nelson focused on accelerating the growth of the blue economy.

With government co-funding, Moananui’s aim is to enable businesses, government bodies, and other experts to work together to fast-track growth of the ‘blue economy’ – marine activities that generate economic value and contribute positively to social, cultural, and ecological wellbeing. More than 400 marine-related businesses and more than 30 percent of New Zealand’s fishing, aquaculture, and seafood processing are based in Te Tau Ihu (the top of the South Island), making Nelson the natural place to establish the cluster.

Left to right: Moananui Chief Executive Jodie Kuntzsch, Cawthron Institute Board of Directors and Nelson Regional Development Agency (NRDA) Meg Matthews, Nelson MP Rachel Boyack, Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, Hon. Stuart Nash, and Fiona Wilson, Chief Executive of NRDA. Photo: Cawthron.

March 2023: Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Auckland have been named as co-hosts of a government-funded Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) Development Platform. The platform is supported by the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research and the University of Otago, with Dr Kjesten Wiig of the Malaghan Institute and Prof. John Fraser of the University of Auckland as the interim co-directors of the platform.

RNA technologies played a key role in the development of COVID-19 vaccines and this breakthrough has created significant opportunities for the technologies to be used in novel therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccines. These technologies will also have application in other fields, including animal health and agriculture.

Initial funding of $500,000 is being provided to the RNA Development Platform to prepare a seven-year research plan. This plan will be supported by a further $69.5 million over seven years to support capacity- and capability-building in the sector.

The platform will bring together RNA researchers from around the country.

March 2023: For an orchardist to know how big their harvest is likely to be, the fruit must be counted.

But that counting can be time-consuming and tedious – and needs to be done not once, but at least twice. First orchardists count how much fruit has set, and how much needs to be thinned to ensure maximum quality. Then they need to count again, to check that the thinning has been done properly.

A successful six-year Lincoln Agritech project funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and New Zealand Apples and Pears Inc (NZAPI) to develop a counting app, is set to make a real difference.

The project involved capturing thousands of images of flowers, fruitlets and fruit counts on trees to train a specialised artificial neural network (ANN) called a convolutional neural network (CNN) designed to extract and interpret features from the images. These features are then combined in a model to form regions that are classified into fruit and non-fruit, providing a crop load estimate.

The app has been trained to recognise apple fruitlets for thinning. Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

March 2023: BRANZ has made a bulletin available to assist with the putting right that is so important after a flood. It covers health and safety considerations, tips for cleaning up inside and outside, drying out the house, and repairs. The bulletin updates and replaces Bulletin 455 Restoring a house after flood damage. It does not cover making residential properties resilient to flooding.

Once building access is safe and services such as electricity are turned off or made safe, flood debris should be cleared away quickly so drying can start as soon as possible.

Finishing work must not begin until the building is fully dry. Beginning work too soon may result in longer-term damage such as mould growth and timber decay.

The building owner should contact their insurance company as early as possible and follow the insurer’s instructions. Work on the building should not begin until the owner has confirmed that the insurance assessor has visited and/or the insurance company has authorised the work to go ahead.

March 2023: The days when sustainable house design was just a cosy nice-to-have will soon be behind us. The government has flagged significant upcoming changes in its Building for climate change programme and other workstreams.

The benefits of good sustainable design have been understood since the 1970s, but they are still far from standard in many houses in Aotearoa New Zealand. You don’t need to look hard to find new homes where the carbon footprint is enormous, the north-facing garage steals the winter sun, the large south-facing glazing makes for chilly nights and the power bills are eyewatering.

BRANZ/Massey University research has found newly constructed houses were responsible for five times more emissions than they should be if our houses are on track to reach a net-zero goal by 2050. At the same time, BRANZ is hearing from around the country that a growing number of clients, including families looking to build a new house, are bringing up the topic of carbon footprints with their designer.

Photo: Louise Thomas.

March 2023: A preclinical study evaluating a Kiwi-made Covid-19 vaccine – Kiwi Vax – has shown its unique formulation induces a safe and highly effective immune response to SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, making it a promising booster vaccine candidate.

Published in iScience, the study findings show that Kiwi Vax, developed by Vaccine Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand – Ohu Kaupare Huaketo (VAANZ) as part of the Government’s Covid-19 vaccine strategy, is highly immunogenic, robustly expressed, and has a strong stability profile. The vaccine was independently tested at the National Institutes of Health in the United States and at the University of Melbourne.

“These findings not only show we have developed a promising booster vaccine candidate, but that we have the expertise, capability and experience within New Zealand to make our own vaccines – something that stands us in good stead for future pandemics,” says the Malaghan Institute’s Dr Kjesten Wiig, Executive Director of VAANZ.

March 2023: In 1988, Cyclone Bola caused extensive damage to the North Island in the regions of Gisborne and Northland. The destruction caused by both cyclones was similar in many respects: flooding, silt deposition in vineyards around harvest time, damage to the trellis system, vines falling over, or, in extreme cases, vineyards completely destroyed. Some remediation and recovery approaches applied with Bola are relevant to the damage experienced by Cyclone Gabrielle.

Researchers at Bragato have put together a fact sheet which addresses typical vineyard issues associated with the storm damage along with suggested solutions, gathered from growers who dealt with Cyclone Bola in 1988. They are not prescriptive but should be adapted to specific situations given that the extent of the damage may vary within a single vineyard block and across different vineyards within the same area.

Craggy Range Vineyard, Hawke's Bay. Photo: Bragato.

February 2023: The latest IRANZ newsletter is out now. It's a special issue, dedicated to the amazing women we have working across the spectrum of independent research in Aotearoa New Zealand.

• IRANZ Women of Science

• Cawthron: Sharing a love of science with future researchers

• People of Lincoln Agritech: Jin-Hua Li

• Verum Group’s Dr Laura Molles – listening to the birds

• Malaghan: RNA technology tackling NZ‑specific problems

• Cawthron: Cruise ships highlight why marine biosecurity matters

• HERA hosts Rotary Science & Tech students

• Dragonfly Data Science: Mapping flooding from Cyclone Gabrielle

• Summer of learning for Mātai interns

• . . . And much more.

IYM residential course participants on tour at WSP Research in Petone. Photo: WSP Research.

February 2023 : Follow the link for more details on the February 2023 news briefs from our Independent Research Organisations.

• Speaker's Science Forum: Food security in the face of global challenges
• Motu: Covid-19's impact on the economy
• Changes at the helm for Verum Group
• Lincoln Agritech: Clearing a research path for rangatahi
• Malaghan visiting researcher: Dr Michelle Linterman
• . . . and more.

Motu Economic and Public Policy Research's Senior Fellow Isabelle Sin is speaking at a Manatū Wāhine - Ministry for Women Zoom webinar on 28 February exploring the difficulties to accessing childcare and the effects on mothers’ labour market outcomes, and the wider issues and barriers that women experience when it comes to finding, and staying in, employment. The discussion is based on recent research reports by Motu Economic and Public Policy Research. Photo: Motu.

February 2023: Verum Group’s Dr Laura Molles is a behavioural ecologist with a particular interest in animal communication. She has worked on several field-based projects around the US and in Costa Rica before moving to New Zealand in 2000. Here in New Zealand she has studied kōkako, kakapo, little blue penguins, bellbirds, tūī, and great spotted kiwi, including working on reintroductions and other projects that integrate behaviour and conservation biology.

“I’m originally from Southern California, where I grew up in a neighbourhood bordered by three freeways and a river with concrete banks. But nature is everywhere! There are always interesting critters to watch, even in the middle of a city. I’ve also had the good fortune to study animals in deserts, forests, and grasslands in the US..."

Working with Dr Carol Bedoya at Verum Group, Dr Laura Molles has successfully developed machine learning approaches for individually identifying roroa – great spotted kiwi by their calls. Photo: Verum Group.

February 2023: Researchers at Gillies McIndoe Research Institute have recently published two new open-access papers in international journals. The first paper, by Matt Munro and published in ‘Organoids’, Applications for Colon Organoid Models in Cancer Research, outlines methods for generating colon organoids from patient-derived normal and tumour tissues. The researchers also discuss organoid biobanking, applications of organoids in disease modelling, and a range of platforms applicable to high-throughput drug testing.

The second paper, with research lead by Dr Freya Weth, was published in 'Cells' in December. The paper, Utility of the Cerebral Organoid Glioma 'GLICO' Model for Screening Applications, reviews the recent literature on the use of patient-derived glioblastoma organoid models and their applicability for drug screening, as well as provide a potential workflow for screening using the GLICO model. Glioblastoma is an aggressive and virtually always fatal brain tumour.

Photo: National Cancer Institute.

February 2023: The first of the Speaker’s Science Forum series for 2023 was held on 21 February at Parliament. The central focus of the forum was the major risks to food security in Aotearoa New Zealand and how we can prevent or mitigate these issues to ensure a food secure future.

Dr David Rankin, GreenTech Group Leader at Lincoln Agritech, gave a presentation saying that climate change is altering our weather patterns and increasingly affecting regional food production and hence food security. As key agricultural and horticultural areas in Aotearoa New Zealand are becoming hotter and drier, he asked will we be able to continue to produce enough food for 40 million people?

Dr David Rankin outlining how impacts of climate change on food production can be proactively mitigated. Approaches range from animal and pasture breeding efforts to food additives and wearable tech for cattle.

February 2023: Horticulture feeds our country and is a vital part of the New Zealand economy. Those in the sector have a reputation for taking on hard work and getting it done, often in challenging conditions.

Between 2016 and 2020, the number of ACC claims in horticulture remained relatively steady, however, there was a spike in 2021. In partnership with Horticulture New Zealand, Mackie Research is working with industry experts to look at how work is done in horticulture, the patterns of harm that are emerging, what is already in place to manage harm and support wellbeing, and what further system capabilities could be built within the sector.

Mackie Research have recently published a report Building Systems Capability to Reduce Harm in the Horticulture Sector.

Harm hotspots identified from system analysis. Graphic: Mackie Research.

February 2023: Motu Fellow Phoebe Taptiklis has come up with some life-saving, evidence-based information for people in cyclone-ravaged areas of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Accidental carbon monoxide poisoning kills several people a year in New Zealand. Deaths increase during long-term electricity outages, such as the current outages after Cyclone Gabrielle, as people often bring gas-fuelled appliances (like barbeques and generators) inside for cooking. Burning fuel indoors with bad ventilation can mean a dangerous build-up of carbon monoxide – a colourless, odourless gas. The gas, though slightly lighter than air, diffuses throughout the room.

BBQs are designed for outdoor use and are not as well sealed as other indoor appliances. Generators immediately underneath an open window can also cause carbon monoxide poisoning.

Photo: Kwon Junho, Unsplash.

February 2023: Flooding from Cyclone Gabrielle has devastated regions of Hawke’s Bay. Satellite data allow for an indicative assessment of the extent of the flooding at the time of image collection. Dragonfly Data Science has released Hawke’s Bay flooding data derived from a Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite.

An interactive map of the flooding from Cyclone Gabrielle in Hawke’s Bay, involving input from Dragonfly was published by The Herald, and is available on the Dragonfly website, along with the underlying data.

The imagery was processed in Google Earth Engine, using methods based on those recommended by the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response.

SAR (synthetic aperture radar) imagery is well suited for mapping floods since the data acquisition is possible regardless of the cloud cover and SAR images can be captured day and night.

Image: Dragonfly Data Science.

February 2023: Marine Biologist Dr Bailey Lovett writes about why biosecurity matters.

"When I tell people I’m a marine biosecurity scientist, the response I get is often something along the lines of “marine biosecurity huh, that’s a niche area…” (I understand of course – it’s a bit of a mouthful. The description of what the role involves isn’t necessarily in the name, unless you know what you’re looking for).

"However, if you’ve seen any of the recent news headlines about international cruise ships being stopped from visiting certain parts of New Zealand because they were carrying oysters, snails, and various other hitchhiking critters, you might begin to understand why I don’t think that marine biosecurity is niche at all. In fact, you probably encounter biosecurity issues a lot more than you think."

Marine Biologist Dr Bailey Lovett. Photo: Cawthron Institute.

February 2023: When research scientist Jin-Hua Li was a child she didn't know what scientists did, but thought it seemed interesting.

"When I was growing up, I wanted to be a scientist. I was in year 5 in my primary school, and one day our teacher asked every child what we wanted to do when we grew up. Most children said they wanted to be a teacher, but I said I wanted to be a scientist. I knew what kind of work teachers do, but didn’t know at all what kind of work scientists do, and I could see teachers every day, but had never seen a scientist. I was just curious about what scientists looked like, and what they did every day."

Research Scientist Dr Jin-Hua Li is a plant pathologist for Lincoln Agritech. Her work involves lab work, office work, nursery work, and fieldwork – including sometimes working in a forest. "Mainly I work on beneficial micro-organisms that fix nitrogen, or make phosphate soluble in soil, or help to control some plant pathogens." Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

February 2023: The recent pandemic has heralded advancements in RNA technology and as the Covid storm calms, we are left with a clear sight of the potential this technology has in our future. Dr Rebecca McKenzie works in the Hugh Green Cytometry Centre at the Malaghan Institute. As the powerhouse of the institute, the Hugh Green Cytometry Centre houses state-of-the-art research technologies, among these is New Zealand’s first end-to-end preclinical RNA therapeutics platform.

“Thanks to significant donor funding and capability built as part of Vaccine Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand, we can now carry out all the steps to develop an RNA-based therapy – from designing a template for a unique target, synthesising the RNA molecules and packing them for safe delivery to the body. We can then do the preclinical testing to understand if an appropriate immune response is triggered,” says Rebecca.

February 2023: HERA again hosted the 2023 Rotary National Science and Technology students at HERA House to kick off the new year.

As part of their commitment to inspire future engineers to work in the metals industry, this student event showcases and highlights the real opportunities that exist within the sector.

This year's cohort consisted of 22 students who are seeking further insight into potential future career pathways.

Despite Covid-19 bringing a halt to things for a short while, HERA has been hosting this event for a few years now, and their general approach is to invite their technical team to deliver concise presentations on their role at HERA, how they got there, and what it entails.

2023 Rotary Students using the 3D Scanner under the supervision of Research Engineer Hafez Taheri. Photo: HERA.

February 2023: Lincoln Agritech has again provided an internship for a rangatahi (young person) with the help of Pūhoro STEMM.

Summer intern Taylor Te Puni (Te Āti Awa) is now starting his second year of a BSc in biochemistry at the University of Canterbury, even more enthusiastic after spending the summer working with Lincoln Agritech’s Biotechnology group.

“It’s much better than other holiday jobs I’ve had!” he says. “I’ve experienced working in a scientific setting. I’ve done DNA extraction and I’ve seen how labs actually work.

Pūhoro intern Taylor Te Puni (front left) says one of the best things about working at Lincoln Agritech was working in the laboratory with Research Scientist Jin-Hua Li (front right). He’s also received mentoring from many others, including Biotechnology Team Leader Simon Kelly (back left) and Cultural Advisor Chaz Doherty (back right). Photo: Lincoln Agritech.

February 2023: International film-maker and journalist Mikey Kay says it has been “an honour” shooting an episode of the latest season of On the Frontlines docuseries in Gisborne.

Kay left the city “with a full heart” after filming a piece on the Mātai prostate cancer project and concussion research.

In the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, GE Healthcare launched the On the Frontlines series to capture the efforts and response of the healthcare industry around the world.

Over two years later the series continues to tell stories about the greatest global health challenges and innovations, and the patients, clinicians and technology involved.

Former military man and now film-maker and correspondent Mikey Kay in Gisborne to film a piece on Mātai Research Institute for the GE Healthcare series ‘On the Frontlines’. “There’s amazing work happening at Mātai,” he said. Photo: Mātai Medical Research Institute.

February 2023: Motu Economic and Public Policy Research reports that one of its most popular papers published in the last 12 months was Valuing forest ecosystem services in New Zealand.

The paper, authored by researcher Hannah Kotula, describes several ecosystem service frameworks and outlines how these frameworks can inform land-use decisions, focusing on those involving forests. She also describes methods for valuing ecosystem services and gives examples of forest ecosystem services and draw conclusions based on existing valuation studies in Aotearoa New Zealand. The paper conveys how an ecosystem service approach could be used to capture benefits from ecosystems not often accounted for in land-use decisions.

Society depends on services and benefits provided by ecosystems. Yet, many of our actions affect ecosystems in ways that undermine long-term human well-being. Although ecosystems provide many services to society, many of these services are not accounted for in land-use decisions.

February 2023: Ariana Brown and Jackson Clarke, two of 16 Mātai Medical Research Institute interns talk to Turanga FM about their background studies, what Mātai has to offer, and how they are impacting their community as a whole.

Thanks to support from Te Puni Kokiri, Hugh Green Foundation, Turanga Health and the University of Auckland, Mātai is able to provide summer internships for a number of students from November to January.

Undergraduate interns are typically enrolled in health science, medical or engineering degrees at a national university, and from (or with ties to) Tairāwhiti Gisborne. The ten-week programme provides students with the opportunity to be involved with cutting-edge projects, working alongside a team of expert scientists, clinicians, research staff, PhD students, and Iwi health providers.

2022/23 Summer Interns at Mātai Medical Research Institute. Photo: Mātai Medical Research Institute.

February 2023: We often hear the terms collaboration and co-design as we plan and undertake projects, but what do these mean in practice? Scarlatti's Senior research manager Denise Bewsell explores the topic.

"Let’s say you have a project with input from over 240 researchers, extension personnel, farmers, and growers. How do you empower everyone? How can people be equally heard? How can people be enabled to make important decisions collaboratively?"

Denise writes that the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation is a framework used internationally to help determine the level of participation required for the public's role in a public participation process. IAP2 - International Association for Public Participation - seeks to promote and improve the practice of public participation / community engagement globally through targeted initiatives that are guided by culturally adaptive standards of practice and core values.

Graphic: Scarlatti.

February 2023: Join Mātai Medical Research at the Gisborne War Memorial Theatre on Thursday, 23 February for an update on Mātai progress, and keynote talks from globally renowned experts in medical sciences and imaging technology.

4:30pm: Presentations
7:00pm: Drinks & Nibbles

Speakers include Emeritus Professor Graeme Bydder, Emeritus Professor Terry Peters, Emeritus Professor David Hawkes, Associate Professor Graham Wilson, Associate Professor Miriam Scadeng, Professor Alistair Young, and Professor Helen Danesh-Meyer.

Learn about:

• New imaging & intervention tech for prostate disease
• Mātai meth study & concussion project progress
• Imaging for guided interventions
• A time machine for future health
• AI-enhanced heart imaging
• Improved brain MRI

February 2023: Aqualinc's Ross Hector studies septic tank systems and is continually looking for ways to improve them. He says it's common for rural landowners to dispose of wastewater via septic tanks or similar wastewater systems as the distance to a reticulated network is just too great.

But he says that many people with these types of systems may know little about it - exercising an 'out of sight, out of mind' policy. He says this is largely because visible on-site issues rarely occur.

"However, should a system not be functioning correctly, then concentrations of contaminants entering the environment, and groundwater in particular, may be more significant than expected."

This is especially concerning if systems are installed with close proximity to drinking water bores.

Ross writes that recent research has shown that as much as 30% of New Zealand's septic tank systems may have issues.

February 2023: As vineyards age and succumb to trunk disease, there is an urgent need for information to support replanting decision-making. The selection of rootstock is one of the most important decisions in the development of a vineyard. To address this issue, the Bragato Research Institute recently started a rootstock research programme. A new research trial was planted in October 2022 in the Wairau Valley of Marlborough. It includes 14 rootstocks combined with three levels of irrigation, with the goal of identifying rootstocks that will prepare us for a warmer and drier future.

Dr Carmo Vasconcelos reports that climate change has impacted viticulture in almost all wine regions in recent decades, primarily due to rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and an increase in the frequency of extreme events, affecting grape yield and quality.

She writes that the water footprint of agriculture is also under increased scrutiny, and industries need to be prepared for future restrictions on water available for irrigation.

February 2023: Earlier BRANZ research showed mental health and suicide to be major issues facing the construction industry. This year, new research with a wider lens across all industry occupations illuminated the full extent of the issue and the demographic groups most at risk. This new perspective will enable targeted interventions and more-effective development of tailored support.

In the ground-breaking 2018 BRANZ study Mental health in the construction industry, they highlighted that construction workers were more likely than the rest of the workforce to lose their life to suicide.

A catalyst for action, the research prompted the establishment of workplace mental health programme MATES in Construction (MATES) in New Zealand in 2019.

MATES trains construction workers in offering mental health support to their colleagues and asking for help when they are struggling themselves.

Now, MATES has data from two new studies published this year, which it is using to target its interventions more effectively.

February 2023: In this RNZ article Niva Chittock reports on the work of the Cawthron Institute monitoring New Zealand's waters for harmful algal blooms - a situation that could arise more often if rising sea temperatures entice more harmful algal blooms from the sub-tropics to New Zealand's shores.

Aquaculture research scientist Dr Anne Vignier said while the exact impact of warmer ocean temperatures was not yet known, it was likely to have negative consequences for seafood.

"We're already seeing reduced resilience in commercially important fish and shellfish species with increased water temperatures, and then if you put harmful algal bloom exposure on top of that, it's an extra stress," says Dr Vignier.

Warmer sea temperatures may change how harmful algal blooms act too, she said.

A Noctiluca scintillans bloom in Blackwood Bay, 2012. Photo: Cawthron Institute.

February 2023: Dr John McDermott, Chair of IRANZ, Executive Director at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, and a well known macroeconomist, addressed the Port Nicholson Rotary Club on 25 January with reference to the things that can happen in an economy when external events such as a pandemic can drive consumers, businesses, governments, and central banks to react in different ways.

To provide an example of how inflation can be generated and controlled, John referred to a 1970s story of the Washington DC Capitol Babysitters Co-op, whose purpose was to fairly distribute the responsibility of babysitting between its members. The story is often used as an allegory for a demand-oriented model of an economy. The allegory illustrates several economic concepts, including the "paradox of thrift" and the importance of the money supply to an economy's well-being.

Brent Gerrard reported on the talk for the club.

Dr John McDermott speaking about the impact of the pandemic on the economy. Photo: Port Nicholson Rotary Club.

January 2023: The prospect of recession is looming ever large as central banks act to restore price stability. To understand the nature of recessions, you need a long historical record.

Unfortunately, official Aotearoa New Zealand data on quarterly real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) only goes back to 1987, limiting our ability to understand the nature of growth or frequency of recessions.

To help, Motu Research's John McDermott and Viv Hall (Professor at Victoria University of Wellington) recently updated their estimates of quarterly GDP back to 1947. This gives 75 years’ worth of economic history we can use to deepen our understanding of the Aotearoa economy.

The data is available for free on Motu's website. Download the excel file - or if you wish to access the data directly in Python, R or EViews - use the code provided on our website.

January 2023: About 10 minutes is all it takes for the air in a room to be exchanged with fresh air if you open windows on different walls. This helps remove or reduce particles that may be carrying viruses. This advice from the Indoor Air Quality Research Centre, which BRANZ helped establish, led to teachers ventilating classrooms as part of the COVID-19 response.

There are invisible dangers harbouring in the air inside some buildings that mean people might not be as safe indoors as they believe. Assembling the best minds in the country on ‘all things indoor air quality’ is helping to propel research in the field. This is in a bid to better understand the health effects and to find solutions to improving poor indoor air quality.

Experts from seven leading research organisations came together to form the Indoor Air Quality Research Centre (IAQRC): BRANZ, GNS Science, NIWA and the universities of Canterbury, Massey, Otago and Victoria.

January 2023: The endemic ground wētā, Hemiandrus bilobatus, lives in burrows in the soil, but its presence can negatively affect wine grape production. This is especially so in vineyards in the Awatere region in Marlborough. Vine growth in early spring provides the ground wētā with a buffet of fresh buds to feed upon, which causes damage detrimental to vine growth and fruit yield.

The current ground wētā management tool sees plastic sleeves wrapped around vine trunks in an attempt to prevent wētā from accessing the cordon. However, the sleeves are costly to install and maintain, resulting in a significant waste-management issue.

A Bragato research team is hoping to develop an environmentally and economically sustainable solution to the growing problem of ground wētā. Among the issues they write about are identifying wētā burrows during the day. It is not straightforward because the wētā make soil plugs or doors to close their burrow entrances, so they are hidden from view.

Installing pitfall traps in a vineyard to catch walking/jumping insects. Photo: Bragato Research Institute.

January 2023: CRISPR-Cas9 is an exciting new addition to the Malaghan Institute’s repertoire of tools to investigate the immune system.

“There will always be new technologies that allow you to expand your research or even unlock knowledge that we had no way of accessing previously. CRISPR-Cas9 is one of those technologies,” says Dr Olivier Lamiable.

Olivier, a member of the Ronchese Lab at the Malaghan Institute, is a team leader using revolutionary CRISPR-Cas9 technology to understand how allergic diseases develop on a cellular and molecular level.

“It allows us to precisely modify, add or remove specific parts of the DNA of live cells in a way that is faster and easier than any method before.”

Dr Olivier Lamiable is working to understand which genes are involved in the function of a molecule that might be involved in conditioning T‑cells to react and drive allergic responses. Photo: Malaghan Video.

January 2023: The future's looking brighter for a new generation of kauri trees. Working with scientists, rongoā Māori practitioners say they're close to finding a cure for kauri dieback disease.

Journalist Te Rina Kowhai from TV3's Newshub interviewed scientists Dr Amanda Black (soil scientist) and Dr Nick Waipara (plant pathologist) from Te Tira Whakamātaki (TTW) about mātauranga Māori solutions in the battle against Kauri dieback disease.

"I'm optimistic that it's there, we are not there yet but we are getting there," says Nick.

But Nick cautions that more research is still needed to validate whether the soil-pathogen phytophthora agathidicida has been eradicated from the sick kauri trees treated with rongoā.

Amanda explained how the kahikatoa spray used on the soil to treat the sick kauri, uses a mix of mānuka and kānuka and scientists have found that flavonoids from kānuka do inhibit phytophthora - the microorganism which causes kauri dieback.

The item aired on 10 January 2023.

January 2023: In August 2022, devastating floods hit the top of the South Island, destroying aquatic life in its rivers and estuaries.

Journalist Alexa Cook from TV3's Newshub interviewed scientists from the Cawthron Institute about the ongoing impact from the event, which is believed to have killed 80 percent of the fish in Nelson's Maitai River. The scientists say it will take years for the area to recover.

"There's very little life - I'd expect a range of caddisflies, snails, perhaps some worms, mayflies," says Cawthron freshwater scientist Roger Young.

Those critters were stripped from their home when the meandering Maitai turned into a raging torrent. It left an almighty mess and killed at least 80 percent of the eels, trout, whitebait and other fish living in it, Alexa reported.

"It was pretty devastating. There weren't many fish in the river for a while, and very little for them to eat," says Roger.

The item aired on 10 January 2023.

January 2023: Researchers at Nelson’s Cawthron Institute welcomed aquaculture technicians from the Pacific Islands last month for a four-week knowledge exchange project funded through a joint Pacific Island government initiative.

Tuaine (Tutu) Turua, from the Ministry of Marine Resources in Rarotonga, Cook Islands, and Rennie Reymond, from the Ministry of Fisheries and Mineral Resources Development in Kiribati were recently hosted at the Cawthron Aquaculture Park in Glenduan, Nelson, for four weeks.

Tutu Turua and Rennie have backgrounds in mariculture (marine farming) and hatchery production of various native species of commercial and cultural interest for the Pacific communities (e.g., pearl oysters, sea-cucumbers, giant clams, seaweed, freshwater prawns).

“The aim of our visit was to learn from Cawthron researchers’ shellfish hatchery expertise and take that knowledge back home to support our local shellfish industries."

Tutu and Rennie in the Cawthron Aquaculture Park labs working on their microalgae feed trial. Photo: Cawthron Institute.

January 2023: Dr Kyuhan Kim visited his home town in September and October 2022 for the first time in nearly three years. Not only was it an opportunity to see his family again, but also to share his research in best-practice fisheries science.

Kyuhan presented part of his PhD research at the annual meeting of PICES. PICES is an intergovernmental science organisation that coordinates marine research in the North Pacific. Member countries include China, Japan, Russia, US, Canada and South Korea. This year the meeting was conveniently held in his hometown of Busan.

“I spoke about the stock assessment models I developed at university and in my work at Dragonfly. I suggested some possible improvements for the current methods. About 30 people were in my session, and there was quite a lot of interest in my work.”

Kyuhan also spent time sharing his knowledge with the staff and marine biology students at Pukyong National University, where he studied for his masters degree.

Kyuhan presenting a talk at South Korea’s National Institute of Fisheries Science. Photo: Dragonfly.

January 2023: Bragato Research Institute is gearing up to ‘evolutionise’ Sauvignon Blanc, thanks to six scientists and a newcomer called PromethION.

Dr Darrell Lizamore leads the Sauvignon Blanc Grapevine Improvement Programme (Sauvignon Blanc 2.0) out of a laboratory at Lincoln University. He says the programme isn’t traditional breeding, crossing or genetic modification, but a mission to sequence the DNA of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, looking for patterns of increased natural mutation that may help vineyards respond to future challenges. “Plants have an innate ability to change their own genetics when confronted with an environmental shock. If we can use this response to produce vines with different traits, then we could select those better suited to future viticulture.”

From left, Dr Jessica Rivera Perez, Dr Ellie Bradley (epigenetics), Dr Bhanupratap Vanga (genotyping and phenotyping), Dr Solomon Wante (tissue culture), and Dr Darrell Lizamore (absent: Dr Annabel Whibley - bioinformatics). Photo: Bragato.

January 2023: A long-term study of the sustainability of new homes shows not a lot has changed in the past decade. While there has been significant growth in sustainability services, most homes are still built to basic Building Code requirements. It seems that sustainable housing won’t increase until the Code requires it says BRANZ Building Scientist James Sullivan.

Since 2012, BRANZ has been tracking the sustainability indicators of new detached housing constructed in Aotearoa New Zealand. A study is carried out every 4 years, most recently in 2020 and focusing on random samples of newly consented detached houses in Auckland, Hamilton and Christchurch.

James writes that of the 210 houses examined in 2012, none could generously be classified as high performance with multiple elements having significantly above Code R-values. In the 2016 and 2020 samples, there were a few (7 and 5) – all in Christchurch.

Solar panels fitted on a roof. Photo: BRANZ.

January 2023: The Ka Mātau, Ka Ora study is the largest evaluation of COVID-19 vaccine immune responses in New Zealanders, focusing on some of the populations at higher risk from COVID-19, such as Māori, Pasifika, the elderly and those with comorbidities.

The latest data shows a first booster dose significantly improves the ability of vaccine-induced immune responses to neutralise viral variants, including Omicron, across all demographic groups, following a period of waning immunity after a second dose.

“The results are a clear call to action to the nearly one million New Zealanders eligible but yet to get their first booster,” says Dr Maia Brewerton, Clinical Director of Vaccine Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand – Ohu Kaupare Huaketo (VAANZ) which led the study.

“Vaccination continues to be one of the best tools we have for protecting ourselves and our whānau from getting really sick from COVID-19. But two doses isn’t enough – at least one booster dose is key against Omicron, particularly for people vulnerable to more severe COVID-19 disease, including our Māori and Pasifika populations.”