News

November 2021: A ground-breaking discovery from the Malaghan Institute has shone a light on immune cells in the skin, suggesting they play a much larger role in the onset of allergies than first thought.

The discovery throws into question the long-held belief that immune cells behave in the same way, regardless of where they are in the body, which has far-reaching implications for allergic and inflammatory conditions.

The paper ‘Homeostatic IL-13 in healthy skin directs dendritic cell differentiation to promote Th2 and inhibit Th17 cell polarization,’ published in Nature Immunology has found that dendritic cells in the skin behave differently than their counterparts elsewhere in the body. This finding, the cumulation of several years of research supported by the Health Research Council of New Zealand, thoroughly challenges the established perception of how these key immune cells behave.

The Immune Cell Biology team. Image: Malaghan Institute.

November 2021: A study from the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research has found that a high fibre diet can improve the immune response to the first dose of a vaccine.

Published in Frontiers in Immunology, the finding has implications for how we might tailor our diets to stimulate the best protective effect from novel vaccines.

The study, funded by High Value Nutrition Ko Ngā Kai Whai Painga National Science Challenge, investigated immune responses to the influenza vaccine. Participants were asked to report on their diets, with samples of their gut microbiome tested to understand which types of bacteria were prevalent prior to vaccination. After being given the influenza vaccine, participants’ blood was then analysed to assess the resulting antibodies they produced and determine how responsive their immune system was to the vaccine.

Image: Mark Stebnicki, Pexels.

November 2021: A non-invasive ground-penetrating radar technology, developed by Lincoln Agritech, that can measure soil moisture in real-time while travelling around on a centre pivot, has been licensed to an Israeli company - Autonomous Pivot.

Trials in the US have allowed farmers to use 25% less water without a loss in yield.

The technology was developed from a "Smart Idea" funded by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, and developed by Ian Woodhead, and Lincoln Agritech electromagnetic team members Adrian Tan and Ian Platt.

CEO Dr Peter Barrowclough says they are very proud that a New Zealand research organisation can make such a difference to the world.

Peter was interviewed on NewsTalk ZB about the deal.

Dr Peter Barrowclough. Image: Lincoln Agritech.

November 2021: An international research team, which included scientists from Australia and the US, has documented that coastal infrastructure has already replaced more than half of the coastline in the areas studied. Coastal marine habitats are extremely important to ocean health, but researchers at New Zealand’s Cawthron Institute are warning that the global phenomenon of ‘coastal hardening’ caused by urbanisation and industry in coastal areas is putting them under threat.

Cawthron marine scientist Oliver Floerl lead authored a new paper published in the prestigious scientific journal ‘Nature Sustainability’, which outlines the threat posed by this challenge.

The team mapped coastal infrastructure like ports, wharves, marinas, and seawalls in 30 urban centres around the world, including in the UK, the US, and New Zealand.

"When we replace natural habitats with artificial ones, we impact the species that live there, damage the ecosystem, and make our shores vulnerable to invasive marine pest species.”

Aerial images of Tauranga in 2018 (left) and 1943 (right) demonstrate the extent of coastal hardening. Image: Cawthron Institute.

November 2021: The Malaghan Institute’s Dr Kerry Hilligan has been awarded the prestigious Rutherford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Royal Society Te Apārangi to conduct research on how exposure to different germs impacts the likelihood of developing allergies and autoimmune diseases.

“I hope to uncover some of the critical interactions between microbes and our immune system that educate immune cells to respond optimally when confronted with dangerous infectious diseases. I also want to be able to prevent inappropriate immune responses such as those associated with allergy and autoimmunity,” says Dr Hilligan.

Professor Franca Ronchese (left) and Dr Kerry Hilligan. Image: Malaghan Institute.

November 2021: Motu research fellow Phoebe Taptiklis co-authored a blog in Otago University's Public Health Expert outlining basic principles of using air purifiers to reduce the risk of Covid-19 transmission.

Indoor environments increase the risk of transmission for the virus that causes Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) by containment and concentration of the airborne virus. However, to reduce such transmission, the particles that carry the virus can be diluted by bringing in as much outdoor air as possible. When good ventilation is not possible, air purifiers can be used as an additional preventative measure to reduce the number of virus-laden particles.

And ventilation and purification of indoor air needs to be used alongside public health measures, such as vaccination, staying home when unwell, and mask use.

The blog outlines some basic principles of using air purifiers, such as filter types and room placement, to reduce the risk of Covid-19 transmission.

November 2021: New BRANZ/Otago University research has revealed that New Zealand’s construction workers are more than two times more likely to die by suicide than the rest of the workforce. The research has been commissioned by suicide prevention and support programme MATES in Construction (MATES) and funded by the Building Research Levy.

“What this new research shows is that we may have been undercounting the number of suicides in the industry by excluding occupational categories that actually belong in our industry. This information will help to offer more targeted support as we now have a more detailed picture of the scale and who is affected,” says MATES CEO Victoria McArthur.

While construction workers make up about 9.5% of all workers, the study found that between 17.3% (2010/11) and 29.7% (2018/2019) of those who died by suicide in New Zealand were employed in the sector. As there are still open cases with coroners for the years 2017-2019, the numbers are likely to be even higher.

November 2021: PlantTech’s research strategy involves using information for insights and data-driven decision-making in New Zealand's horticulture industry. Over the coming year the research team will focus on three specific areas - Proximal Sensing; Remote Sensing; and Environmental DNA and Ecosystems.

Proximal Sensing is gathering data in close proximity to the plant, be it images, soil samples, or weather data. Among other things, this helps with yield prediction, and understanding a crop’s health and nutrition status.

Remote Sensing uses technologies such as drones, aerial surveying, and satellite imagery. The areas investigated span plant health and nutrition, productivity and performance, and biodiversity and disease surveillance, amongst others.

Environmental DNA and Ecosystems involves a new generation of genetic sensing technologies that can provide deep insights into the organisms present in an environment.

Image: Michael Dziedzic, Unsplash.

November 2021: A recently published HERA report says Industry 4.0 is driving an unprecedented transformation across global industry, as new technologies promise to save time, boost productivity, reduce waste, expand business models, and allow businesses to be more responsive to fast-changing environments and consumer demands.

"While companies have the opportunity to position themselves at the forefront of this new Industry 4.0 wave, they can struggle to understand the economic benefits of doing so," writes HERA CEO Dr Troy Coyle.

Troy says the latest report in collaboration with BERL, modelling the potential economic impacts of Industry 4.0 in New Zealand, uses high-level CGE modelling to analyse the impact over the next five years.

"The modelling suggests that the economic gains are likely to be significant."

Image: HERA.

October 2021: BRANZ is pleased to announce that the 2021 BRANZ postgraduate scholarship round is now open.

They welcome applications from scholars whose postgraduate study will begin in 2022. BRANZ funds scholarships for university students with outstanding academic credentials to undertake post-graduate research in the building and construction sector. For information on BRANZ’s priorities for research, please refer to the Levy Investment Signals. Examples of current scholars’ research topics include: low-carbon construction, sustainable building, home maintenance, environmental resilience and mental health and wellbeing.

Allocations are $20,000 for a Masters Research thesis, or up to $25,000 p.a. (for up to three years) for a PhD.

Applications close on Wednesday 24 November 2021.

Photo: Keira Burton, Pexels.

October 2021: An algae-based pain medication that could improve the care of patients undergoing surgery is now closer to reality thanks to a collaboration between Cawthron Institute and medical researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital (a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital) and Chilean biotech company Proteus.

Cawthron has announced they have developed a reliable and commercially scalable method for producing neosaxitoxin, a potent toxin from the paralytic shellfish toxin family, that can be combined with existing local anaesthetics for use as a local anaesthetic during and after surgery in post-operative patients.

Local anaesthetics currently on the market are of two chemical classes that have changed little over the past 50 years. Neosaxitoxin is the first member of a new class to be used in human clinical trials as a local anaesthetic.

Cawthron's Algae Facility. Image: Cawthron Institute.

October 2021: Lincoln Agritech has recently been awarded $8.3M from the New Zealand Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Endeavour Fund for a five-year research programme aiming to develop novel cellulose fibres regenerated from New Zealand plant resources for textile use.

The research collaborators in the programme, led by Lincoln Agritech Ltd, include The Ferrier Institute, SCION, and AgResearch. The aim is to develop the basis for a new industry exporting a substantial volume of regenerated cellulose fibres derived from dedicated plantations. It is further intended to divert current streams of lower value or waste cellulose material and foster the development of high-end textiles made by New Zealand designers.

The unique fibre wet-spinning expertise at Lincoln Agritech has been developed through a partnership programme funded by Wool Industry Research Limited (WIRL) and MBIE, to develop new uses for crossbred wool.

October 2021: A short film weaving together oral history, science, and matauranga Māori showcases the work Rangitīkei iwi are doing to revitalise the health of Lake Oporoa. Alongside GNS Science and the Cawthron Institute, Rangitīkei iwi are building a picture of over a thousand years of the lake’s history.

Whakahokia te mauri o Oporoa is a short film that celebrates the commitment of Rangitīkei iwi to enhancing the mauri (life force) and ecological health of Lake Oporoa, a relatively unknown lake in the Rangītikei catchment near Taihape. The film draws from Māori oral history, scientific insights, and childhood memories of Lake Oporoa.

The collaboration of iwi and scientists is part of a nationwide project called Our lakes’ health – past, present, future (‘Lakes380’) jointly led by the Cawthron Institute and GNS Science.

Ngā Puna Rau o Rangitīkei representatives with Lakes380 researchers. Image: Horizons Regional Council.

October 2021: Too many of our houses are sub-par. Renovating provides the opportunity to improve comfort, air quality and thermal performance, making them healthier and less demanding on the environment.

In this first of a series into renovating housing, BRANZ Technical Writer Bruce Sedcole writes for build magazine about the reasons people are deciding to upgrade their existing dwellings rather than move.

He writes that the performance benchmarks set by contemporary residential construction such as thermal efficiency, air quality, access and services can be met by retrofitting and renovating existing housing stock at a relatively affordable cost and a significantly lower carbon cost than building new.

"It has traditionally been a part of our New Zealand DNA to undertake additions and alterations to our existing homes. From minor dwelling alterations to extreme total makeovers, the draw of changing our own residential built environment has been irresistible."

A well planned small addition can transform the liveability of a modest home. Photo: build magazine.

October 2021: A collaboration between the New Zealand Brain Research Institute and University of Canterbury researcher, Dr Catherine Theys, has recently received a research grant from Canterbury Medical Research Foundation to investigate, for the first time, how stuttering therapy changes brain function in children who stutter. With these findings, they aim to improve treatment, and have a positive impact on the lives of the 80 million people who kikikiki/stutter and their whānau worldwide.

At least one in twenty pre-schoolers in Aotearoa New Zealand develops stuttering. While many recover, spontaneously or with early speech-language therapy, a significant proportion do not. For the 1% of the population with persistent stuttering, there is currently no cure. Treatments are demanding and effects are often not maintained.

Communicating effectively with others is essential for a person’s hauora (physical, emotional, social and spiritual wellbeing). For those who stutter or kikikiki, everyday communication is a struggle.

October 2021: The Central Otago region is steeped in viticultural history. Some of the first grapes were planted more than 150 years ago by French immigrant Jean Desire Feraud on his property near Clyde. A goldminer by trade, Feraud benefited from his winemaking heritage to create the Monte Christo Winery.

Now, with molecular testing, Bragato Research Institute has confirmed Feraud’s legacy lives on through a recently identified Trollinger vine at the present-day Monte Christo Winery. The Trollinger vine has links back to Italy and Germany.

Viticulturist Sam Woods has been with Monte Christo since July last year, assisting the new property owners with their efforts to restore the winery to its former glory.

"Part of my research has involved working with Darrell at the Bragato Research Institute to identify some of the old, established grapevines on the Monte Christo property."

Sam says it has been an interesting process.

A harvest time comparison between Pinot Noir, left, and Trollinger, right. Photo: Sam Woods, Monte Christo.

October 2021: A new paper from Motu Research shows successive New Zealand Governments have failed to keep human rights promises that all New Zealanders will have the basic levels of housing, health care, and protection in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The paper says successive New Zealand Governments have not sufficiently prioritised human rights that were agreed to in international human rights treaties.

The paper helps to identify where resources are most urgently needed to ensure all Kiwis have the right to adequate housing — and the right to health care and protection.

Motu Research Analyst and lead paper author Livvy Mitchell says more people are becoming homeless in our country, with the number of people living in cold, damp, and mouldy homes also increasing. At the same time housing is becoming more and more unaffordable.

Photo: Andrew Seaman, Unsplash.

September 2021: While clinicians and researchers worldwide have been looking closely at all aspects of COVID-19, the majority of data has been limited to patients admitted to hospital and intensive care units. This has provided insights in severe COVID, but leaves out those with less-severe disease. New Aotearoa New Zealand research published on 17 September has sought to redress the balance.

The Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINZ) COVID team, led by Dr Nethmi Kearns, Clinical Research Fellow, working in partnership with Regional Public Health (RPH), have analysed data on the progression, prognosis, and management of the 2020 alpha strain of all community COVID-19 cases in the Greater Wellington region.

Dr Nethmi Kearns, MRINZ Clinical Research Fellow. Photo: Rebecca McMillan.

September 2021 The latest IRANZ newsletter is out now. It's a bumper issue full of the latest independent science research news from around Aotearoa NZ.

Read all about:

• IRANZ & STEMM - Science, Tech, Engineering, Maths, & Mātauranga

• IRANZ members successful in 2021 Endeavour investment round

• WSP waterproofing roads to create durable and less costly infrastructure

• MRINZ: Blood thinners effective treatment for many with COVID-19

• Malaghan: Study finds link between pH balance and allergic skin disease

• Mātai: Effects of meth addiction on the brain - pilot study

• Cawthron: How seaweed could benefit Aotearoa NZ

• Aqualinc: How land is irrigated

• . . . And much more.

September 2021: A number of research proposals involving IRANZ members have been successful in the 2021 Endeavour investment round. The Government's Endeavour Fund plays a unique role in the science system through an open, contestable process with a focus on both research excellence and a broad range of impacts. The programme is highly competitive with only around 13% of submitted proposals successful. However, for proposals led by or involving IRANZ members the success rate for Endeavour Fund investment doubles.

A PlantTech Smart Idea programme will develop a rapid, non-invasive, and robust monitoring system to reveal signs of plant stress within kiwifruit orchards. Image: PlantTech Research Institute.

13 September 2021: Te Karere TVNZ - The Heavy Engineering Research Association (HERA) is on a mission to increase the number of Māori engineers. Alongside Pūhoro STEM Academy, they say their goal is to improve equity, diversity, and inclusion within the industry. Bronson Perich has more.

September 2021: Follow the link for more details on the September 2021 news briefs from our Independent Research Organisations.

• Isabelle Sin - recipient of NZIER Early Career Economics Leader Award
• Malaghan: Dr Fran Priddy appointed to CEPI Scientific Advisory Committee
• Cawthron researcher features in new pukapuka ‘Ngā kete Mātauranga: Māori scholars at the research interface
• Lincoln Agritech: Yiwen Zhou Wins an International Young Scientist Award
• Mātai Research Fellow successfully defends PhD
• . . . and more.

The NZ Institute of Economic Research Inc (NZIER) announced on 2 September that Dr Isabelle Sin, Senior Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, is the recipient of the inaugural NZIER Early Career Economics Leader Award for 2021. Image: Motu.

September 2021: Understanding where and how land is irrigated is a key input to analysing or modelling the water quality impacts of land-use and the water quantity impacts of abstraction.

After beginning with a project for Environment Canterbury to map irrigated land in Canterbury, Aqualinc mapped the whole of New Zealand in 2017 for the Ministry for the Environment.

Aqualinc Research Director Dr John Bright says this national dataset was updated in 2020, taking advantage of new satellite and aerial imagery taken during the very dry 2019 - 2020 summer. “Adding satellite imagery from 2019/2020 was very useful as it strongly highlights in a very visual manner the contrast between irrigated and non-irrigated land.”

Irrigated areas detected by the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) calculated from Sentinel-2 satellite images. Image: Aqualinc.

September 2021: Aotearoa New Zealand’s road network is highly susceptible to water damage with more than 90% of our roads constructed from chip seal construction. As much one third of the NZ$1.3 billion spent annually on road maintenance is directly or indirectly related to water damage.

WSP Research and Innovation Centre is finalising construction of its latest field trial of a non-permeable membrane that prevents water from entering the base course at its upper surface and uses methods to modify the sealing chip surface to prevent water disbonding of bitumen that leads to flushing. The trial is the result of a five-year research project funded by MBIE and collaborators.

“The lab trials have been successful and as we move to road trials a considerable cost saving could be made for the nation,” says WSP materials scientist Dr Jeremy Wu.

Water damage plays a major role in 'flushing', the slick bitumen-rich patches often seen on the road surface. Water can disbond the bitumen from the stone surface, which under the action of traffic migrates upwards. Photo: WSP Research.

September 2021: Mātauranga Māori concepts are a new and challenging space for many of us in science, but as scientists we support the knowledge gains that mātauranga Māori presents. Recent discussions surrounding science and mātauranga Māori highlighted the opportunity for IRANZ members to lead by example and undertake our research in a more holistic manner. IRANZ is excited to embrace our three newest member organisations, who are Māori-led Independent Research Organisations: Mātai Medical Research Institute, Takarangi Research Group, and Te Tira Whakamātaki. We look to them to help us find sustainable solutions to the challenges IRANZ faces to support mātauranga Māori and partnerships with Māori. We strive to provide the right culture in our organisations to incorporate mātauranga Māori into our research programmes and to welcome Māori into our research teams.

Photo: Louise Thomas.

September 2021: Aotearoa New Zealand's shift to a net-zero carbon economy will place big demands on our building and construction industry to deliver low-carbon buildings. A BRANZ project is researching how best to assist the industry to make the transition.

BRANZ social scientists Orin Lockyer and Dr Casimir MacGregor write about how workers will need to learn new skills to continue practising their profession in a low emissions environment.

"Like other sectors, the construction sector will experience change. Responding to climate change will require our workforce to acquire new skills, competencies and expertise to meet our emissions targets.

"Despite government moves, the Construction Sector Accord has only recently focused attention towards sustainability issues and the transition to a zero-carbon economy."

Recent research by the European Commission shows the construction sector is undergoing massive change as it aims to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings. Image: BRANZ.

September 2021: In April/May 2021, Mackie Research in collaboration with Massey University helped co-design a ‘Give-it-a-go’ ebike trial with Time-to-Thrive (TTT), a community trust in Māngere. Participants took part in three two-hour workshops, run by TTT, during which they gained skills riding an ebike in on and off-street situations. This was followed by a hui to explore experiences of the training sessions and whether there was an appetite for further ebike use and in what contexts.

Hamish Mackie from Mackie Research says that within the transport sector, there is a significant risk that some communities will miss out on the e-mobility revolution and the many co-benefits that come with ebikes, which may contribute to low carbon transitions being inequitable.

“In addition to reducing emissions, ebikes have travel time savings, less parking stress, cycling ease in hilly topography, fitness, enjoyment, and mental wellbeing." Image: Hamish Mackie.

September 2021: The NZ Institute of Economic Research Inc (NZIER) announced on 2 September that Dr Isabelle Sin, Senior Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, is the recipient of the inaugural NZIER Early Career Economics Leader Award for 2021.

The $10,000 award recognises Isabelle’s work on the gender pay gap in medicine and her work on intended vs actual parental leave for working mothers.

Her work on the gender pay gap, using New Zealand data, revealed that women were paid substantially less even when controlling for factors that might influence the gender pay gap, such as years of experience (which might be influenced by parenthood).

Dr Isabelle Sin, Senior Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research

September 2021: Researchers at Nelson’s Cawthron Institute are co-leading a collaboration of international scientists working to understand an emerging environmental threat to lakes all over the world that were previously considered to be in good health.

In a paper published in Bioscience Magazine in July, the team of researchers explain that from Lake Tahoe in the USA, to Whakatipu wai-māori/Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown, pristine lakes around the world are being carpeted by bright-green slimy algae growing on the lakebed, especially during the summer. This relatively recent phenomenon is deeply concerning to scientists because it indicates many of the world’s most iconic clear lakes are degrading at an alarming rate.

Filamentous algal blooms in Ōtūwharekai (Upper Māori Lake) near Ashburton. Photo: Cawthron.

September 2021: Designers, new homeowners, and renovators can play a role in helping to reduce New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions. All it takes is critical thinking and taking some pertinent actions, write a research team from BRANZ.

The Climate Change Commission’s recent report Ināia tonu nei: A low emissions future for Aotearoa noted, ‘the transition [to a zero-carbon future] can begin in earnest. The technology and tools needed to get there exist today – Aotearoa does not need to rely on future technologies.’

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the construction and occupation of our buildings will be a critically important step if we are to reduce the impact of climate change. As the Climate Change Commission report mentions, there are many things we can do now to help reduce our environmental impact in relation to how we design, construct and live in our buildings.

Strategies to build lower-carbon homes. Image: BRANZ.

August 2021: According to one of New Zealand’s leading aquaculture scientists, king salmon can be fussy eaters, but after seven years of research and development, a team of research and development collaborators have settled on a selection of advanced diets that keep the fish happy and healthy and improve feed conversion.

The initial aims of the collaboration between Cawthron scientists and industry partners New Zealand King Salmon and Seafood Innovations Limited were to improve fish nutrition, feed conversion rates, and overall fish health.

Cawthron Institute’s Kevin Heasman said when the $5.2m Seafood Innovation Limited funded project began in 2014, little was known about the diets of king or Chinook salmon, as they make up only 0.04% of the world’s farmed salmon. However, seven years later, they have gained an enormous amount of baseline knowledge about king salmon physiology, health, and dietary requirements. Photo: Cawthron.

August 2021: The Malaghan Institute’s Professor Franca Ronchese and Dr Maia Brewerton have been awarded a $1.2M Health Research Council Project Grant to investigate the link between dendritic cells and allergic disease in the skin.

The three-year programme, which will compare inflammatory responses in healthy individuals with those suffering allergic disease, is part of wider research at the Institute to find new, more effective ways to treat skin disease such as eczema, and provide relief for those with debilitating allergic conditions.

Dendritic cells are a key immune cell of interest for allergy research, due to their role in initiating different kinds of immune responses. They patrol the body’s tissues and organs, ‘priming’ the immune response as they pick up evidence of infection or dangerous interlopers and present this information as antigens to the rest of the immune system.

The Malaghan Institute Immune Cell Biology team. Photo: Malaghan Institute.

August 2021: A collaboration between BRANZ and Stats NZ will see hundreds of homes assessed as part of a BRANZ study on energy use in Aotearoa New Zealand households.

The study will collect information on how, where, when, and why energy is being used in our homes. It will also look at what drives that use, such as the characteristics of the home and behaviours of occupants.

The data collected will help government, scientists, and researchers find ways to make homes healthier places to live in and be more energy efficient.

Participants in the study will come from the Household Economic Survey (HES) which is carried out every year by Stats NZ.

Data from the new project will help inform how we transition to a low carbon economy and the role household energy usage plays in New Zealand’s overall energy system. Photo: Bruno Fernandez, Unsplash.

August 2021: HERA CEO Troy Coyle says that recent media about building materials has prompted HERA to outline the sustainability credentials of steel.

She says there have been political moves to a 'wood first' policy, including statements from Minister Stuart Nash saying, “There is nothing you can do with steel and concrete that can’t be done with timber.”⁠

Troy says these types of statements are concerning as materials choice should be data-led. "Even more so, because they’re based on a lot of incorrect assumptions about the carbon performance of steel."

To address this, and also to assist engineers and specifiers to understand steel from a sustainability standpoint, HERA has developed a FAQ resource as a quick reference.

Globally, steel is amongst the top recycled building materials. An estimated 72% of all steel used in New Zealand is recycled. Using local steel has the benefit of reducing carbon associated with freight from the supply chain. Photo: Scott Webb, Pexels.

August 2021: From telescopes to speakers, MRI screening and magnets, aerospace, and touch screen technology, REEs have myriad uses. With most production in China, and global demand expanding, a search is on for new deposits, including in the US, Australia, and New Zealand.

The Government wants to encourage an REE-based industry in New Zealand, and the NZIMMR is spearheading research to make this happen.

Researchers from NZIMMR say West Coast mineral sands along the region’s coasts have revealed encouraging concentrations of REEs, including within minerals not normally thought of as bearing REEs, ilmenite, epidote, zircon. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not uncommon, but the trick is in finding economic deposits, and the NZIMMR is working on a better insight into their mineralogy to help create these.

Allanite, monazite, and xenotime are among REE-bearing minerals in West Coast black sands, along with ilmenite, garnet, and zircon.

August 2021: A new study from Motu Research highlights employers and the Government could do more to support working mothers.

The study compared mothers’ intentions and preferences for parental leave with the leave they actually took after the birth of their children.

“On average, working mothers would prefer to take 69 weeks of leave, much longer than the 26 weeks of paid parental leave currently available. They expect to be able to take only 36 weeks, with much of the difference because of financial constraints,” says Isabelle Sin, one of the study authors.

Although many mothers returned to work earlier than they’d planned, some ended up not working for several years, much longer than they expected. The study found 20% of mothers who remained out of work for several years cited lack of access to affordable childcare or to flexible working conditions as a major factor preventing their return.

Photo: William Fortunato, Pexels.

August 2021: Throughout vintage 2021, the winery team at the Bragato Research Institute (BRI) used the new wine analyzer Lyza 5000 Wine from Anton Paar to generate swift and accurate measurements of various wine parameters during wine-making research trials.

BRI hosted and applied the demo Lyza 5000 Wine instrument during the harvest following a conversation with Anton Paar Territory Manager Mary Bruce. Mary is a supporter of domestic wine research and was pleased to loan the instrument to the Bragato Research Winery for use during the harvest.

"Having the demo Lyza 5000 Wine based at BRI for the harvest has been fantastic for us. When we’re launching new instruments, it’s useful to have established reference sites for industry to access, and BRI has by far the best reach in New Zealand," says Mary.

Lyza 5000 workshop at BRI. Photo: BRI.

August 2021: Cawthron Institute scientists have authored a new seaweed sector report on behalf of the Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge which demonstrates how a prosperous rimurimu/seaweed sector has massive potential to improve the health and well-being of Aotearoa New Zealand.

The report, published in August, shows Aotearoa could reap economic, environmental, social, and cultural benefits – both nationally and locally.

“The potential for Aotearoa as a whole and for local communities is massive. Seaweed makes up almost a third of global aquaculture production volume. Seaweed production has tripled over the last 20 years with a growth rate of 7% per year on average over the last decade. Global value of seaweed aquaculture in 2019 was approximately US$14 billion,” says Project Leader Serean Adams, Aquaculture Group Manager at Cawthron Institute.

Photo: Louise Thomas.

August 2021: New research by the Malaghan Institute’s translational immunology team has identified a key gene that, in the right acidic conditions, can stop T-cells from causing excessive inflammation in the skin.

T-cells are a type of immune cell that help recognise antigens – a key condition for initiating an immune response. Their main role is to cause inflammation to help fight an infection. For most people, their T-cells behave as they should. But for those with inflammatory conditions, often their T-cells activate or turn on when they shouldn’t, kicking off the immune response and causing harmful inflammation. Ensuring that T-cells behave as they should, especially in the skin, is important in preventing the development of inflammatory diseases such as eczema and psoriasis.

Healthy skin typically has a slightly acidic pH, around 5.5. However, it becomes more neutral (or basic) in diseases like atopic dermatitis, more commonly known as eczema. Photo: Sharon McCutcheon, Unsplash.

August 2021: The award-winning international trial, REMAP-CAP, led here in New Zealand by Dr Colin McArthur, Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINZ) researcher and intensive care specialist at Auckland City Hospital, has provided a framework that has been able to efficiently evaluate multiple treatment options for patients who are critically ill due to COVID-19.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, clinicians around the world observed the common occurrence among patients of widespread blood clots and significant inflammation, which affected multiple organs leading to complications such as lung failure, heart problems, and stroke.

Doctors were unsure whether treating COVID-19 patients with preventative high doses of blood thinners, which would otherwise be given at low doses to reduce blood clots, would be safe and effective.

Dr Colin McArthur, Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINZ) researcher and intensive care specialist at Auckland City Hospital.

August 2021: A Motu study shows that people who lose their jobs involuntarily tend to suffer from deep and persistent negative consequences, they have lower mental health and economic security in the short term — and lower earnings and physical health in the long term.

The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment-funded research paper, published last month, estimated the net present value of lifetime wages lost by the New Zealanders who involuntarily lose their jobs in a year - the value is between $3.3 and $15.4 billion, depending on economic conditions.

Unemployment insurance/benefits can mitigate the short-term effects of involuntary job loss. By contrast, training and job placement programmes were found to be typically ineffective.

Photo: Adrian Swancar, Unsplash.

July 2021: A new ‘AIR Algorithm Study’ of 100 New Zealand volunteers, led by the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINZ) in Wellington, is looking deeper into the implementation of AIR therapy, across the spectrum of mild to severe asthma, using just one combination inhaler for both regular scheduled maintenance and as-needed reliever use.

MRINZ has dedicated much of its research focus over the last two decades to the prevention and management of asthma, both here at home in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world.

MRINZ’s asthma research has included three landmark studies which have shown that a 2 in 1 inhaler, containing both a preventer and reliever medication, is far more effective than the traditional single reliever inhaler, which has been the basis of asthma management for over 60 years.

Dr Pepa Bruce, MRINZ clinical research fellow, Graeme Hansen, AIR therapy study volunteer, and Professor Richard Beasley, MRINZ director. Photo: Rob Sarkies.

July 2021: Meth addiction is a major issue in our community, with meth use disproportionately high among the poor and disadvantaged. MRI has shown that methamphetamine addiction physically changes the anatomy, blood flow, and chemical make-up of the brain, but using MRI to study the effects of meth addiction and treatment efficacy is in the early stages of development.

New MRI techniques and applications to study the brain are continually improving. And while MRI has demonstrated that methamphetamine addiction physically damages the brain, some of these changes are potentially reversible.

At present, Mātai is undertaking a pilot study into using MRI in the study of meth addition. Following the pilot, the goal is to expand into a long-term programme that will assess the efficacy of various new and existing approaches to treatment.

Meth addiction is a major issue in our community. Image: Mart Production, Pexels.

June 2021: The latest IRANZ newsletter is out now. Stuffed full of science research goodness from New Zealand's independent research organisations.

Read all about The future of our science system; A fresh perspective on the housing crisis; BRANZ joint-study finds nearly half of children sleeping in cold rooms; Fidgeting might help us concentrate; Six-minute surgery game-changer for patients with atrial fibrillation; Cawthron: Noise in the ocean is affecting marine mammals; Motu: Warmer Kiwis Study; BBHTC/Motu: Urban employment growth in NZ’s smaller cities; Grape expectations: Lincoln Ag's yield analyser progressing; NZIMMR: Adding value to New Zealand’s silica sand resources; and much more.

Verum Group is running a research project developing artificial intelligence techniques that will hopefully allow the future monitoring of the Great Spotted Kiwi and other bird population to be done in a non-invasive way, avoiding the need to capture the birds. Bellbird/Korimako in red flowering mistletoe, Mt Ruapehu. Image: Louise Thomas.

June 2021: As Cawthron, arguably Aotearoa’s longest established Research Organisation, celebrates 100 years, it is timely to consider the possible near future of our science ecosystem. The Government has recently suggested that our science system may be overhauled on a scale “not seen since the 1990s”. The comment was prompted by the long-awaited review of the National Statement of Science Investment focusing on The Impact of Science, the recommendations made in the CRI Review Te Pae Kahurangi, the PCE review of the funding and prioritisation of environmental research, and the current debate about Science Excellence initiated by MBIE’s Departmental Science Advisors.

Officially established in 1921 by the last will and testament of Nelson philanthropist Thomas Cawthron, Cawthron Institute is now New Zealand’s largest independent science organisation with 300 staff from 35 countries, working across multiple sites in Nelson. Image: Cawthron.

June 2021: Follow the link for more details on the June 2021 news briefs from our Independent Research Organisations.

• PM Opens Cawthron’s new research centre
• Malaghan Institute head recognised for world-class contribution
• Wolfgang Scholz awarded Honorary Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit
• Developments at Bragato
• Malaghan cytometry expert appointed to international leadership programme
• MRINZ trials win five Australian Clinical Trials Alliance (ACTA) 2021 Awards
• Cawthron Institute exhibition opens at Nelson Provincial Museum
• Te Pūtahitanga: A Tiriti–led science-policy approach for Aotearoa New Zealand
• PlantTech machine learning talk at Tauranga Techweek
• New recruits at Aqualinc
• Inaugural Mātai intern helps with concussion study
• . . . and more.

The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern opened the new Cawthron National Algae Research Centre on 27 May. Image: Cawthron.

June 2021: European regional policy promotes “smart specialisation” by encouraging regions to expand into activities that build on local strengths. The idea is that bringing together people with complementary skills helps them generate new ideas that boost innovation and growth. But does this actually work in a New Zealand context?

Research, recently published in the international journal Regional Studies, by Building Better researchers Benjamin Davies and Dr David Maré, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, examines the potential for this way of generating ideas to promote urban employment growth in New Zealand. They find that, in New Zealand, the presence of related industries in an area is not a strong predictor of local employment growth. But why is that?

Local job networks may promote growth in big cities, but not in small ones. Wellington docks. Image: James Coleman.

June 2021: BRANZ Chief Executive Chelydra Percy says it’s time for a fresh perspective on the housing crisis – for us to think about changing the entire paradigm of housing ownership versus renting. That’s how we will find innovative models and bring real change.

"New Zealand's uniqueness has been sheeted home in various ways over the past year, not least our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which sees us living relatively normal lives. Paradoxically, what has often seemed a disadvantage – being a small island nation far removed from the rest of the world – has proven to be an asset. It’s a reminder as to why perspective is so important.

"Recently, I’ve been reflecting on how useful it can be to challenge the status quo. To walk in someone else’s footsteps to see what they see. To re-evaluate what we take for granted with a fresh perspective."

BRANZ Chief Executive Chelydra Percy asks how do we create a housing model that enables renters to grow and extract their personal equity? One with the underlying goal of affordability, stability and wealth creation. Image: Louise Thomas.

June 2021: A study of more than 2000 eight year-olds has found nearly half are sleeping in bedrooms that are too cold, some slept in temperatures below 10°C. The world-first research was a joint project between the building researchers BRANZ and the University of Auckland longitudinal study Growing Up in New Zealand.

It involved children in the Growing Up in New Zealand study collecting temperature and humidity data at home and school over two days.

This indoor environment information was linked to health information collected from the children.

BRANZ General Manager of Research, Dr Chris Litten, says the link between cold and damp indoor temperatures and poorer health is clear. He says that the study reflects previous research that shows children experiencing the greatest disadvantage are more likely to experience poor quality indoor environments and subsequently poorer overall general health.

A study of more than 2000 eight year-olds in New Zealand has found nearly half are sleeping in bedrooms that are too cold. Image: Annie Spratt, Unsplash.

June 2021: A collaboration between researchers at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI) and Mātai Medical Research Institute in Tairāwhiti Gisborne have used MRI scans to demonstrate that fidgeting, often seen in people with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), might improve activation of the decision-making region of the brain.

The research led by Associate Professor Justin Fernandez of the ABI was conducted at Mātai, an MRI research institute directed by Dr Samantha Holdsworth.

The results of an initial pilot study showed that MRI technology may have the potential to be a diagnostic tool and identify ADHD characteristics. Interestingly, the study suggests that fidgeting may help those with the disorder concentrate.

More specifically, the pilot study showed that fidgeting increased blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in concentration during a decision-making task.

Associate Professor Justin Fernandez from the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, working out first-hand how to allow for fidgeting while in an MRI machine. Image: Mātai Medical Research Institute.

June 2021: International asthma recommendations from the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) have been changed to follow a similar approach to New Zealand's guidelines, which the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINZ) Director Professor Beasley led the 2020 update on for the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation NZ.

Evidence supporting these changes comes in part from findings of asthma research by the MRINZ. Two of the three large randomized controlled trials conducted on the safety and efficacy of a combined 2-in-1 reliever therapy were funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand and are the only independent trials in the field.

Although leading the field in asthma research, asthma is a growing problem in Aotearoa with one in seven children and one in eight adults living with the condition. Māori, Pacific peoples, and those in more socio-economically deprived neighbourhoods are disproportionately affected with higher rates of asthma, hospitalisation, and death, and lower rates of being prescribed standard care.

Illustration: Dr Ciléin Kearns, MRINZ.

June 2021: When you hear a dawn chorus of bellbird/korimako, the mid-morning song of grey warbler/riroriro, or kiwi calling in the darkness, you’re listening to a conversation. Many of the singers you hear know each other as individuals, and they benefit from the ability to recognise one another based on song alone. Conservation can benefit from this, too. Acoustically identifying individual birds allows us to study their ecology and behaviour with less need for invasive methods and disturbance, particularly in species or populations where capturing and handling is difficult or unacceptable.

The Verum Group team has already developed successful artificial intelligence techniques for identifying individuals of roroa (great spotted kiwi) using solely sound. They now plan to extend their computational methods to study species with more call complexity, including rowi (Okarito kiwi), tokoeka (southern brown kiwi), fantails/pīwakawaka, riroriro, and korimako.

Bellbird/Korimako in red flowering mistletoe, Mt Ruapehu. Photo: Louise Thomas.

June 2021: The MBIE-funded Grape Yield Analyser (GYA) research programme, now in its fifth year, is developing sensing technology and tools to support crop load management in grapevine production. The main focus for Lincoln Agritech’s work is developing sensor use for counting grape bunches and a Bayesian model for accurately predicting grape harvest yields early in the growing period.

One tool they are developing is a camera-based method for counting inflorescences, which are young grape bunches before their flowers turn into berries, to support early in-season yield assessment. In some New Zealand vineyards, counting inflorescences in November has replaced counting grape bunches at the pea-size berry stage in mid-January. Leaf density is still low in November and allows the technology to quickly assess inflorescence numbers, which has shown to be a good proxy for grape bunches later in the season.

Detail of a vine with inflorescences identified by Lincoln Agritech's machine learning tool (highlighted in several bright colours). Image: Lincoln Agritech.

June 2021: A clinical study getting underway in Rotorua and Christchurch will provide valuable information on how our unique population responds to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

The study, ‘Ka Mātau, Ka Ora' (from knowledge comes wellbeing), is being led by Vaccine Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand – Ohu Kaupare Huaketo (VAANZ) and is being undertaken to inform the national COVID-19 strategy and ultimately enhance vaccine effectiveness and confidence.

“While the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has demonstrated efficacy and safety in pivotal clinical trials and real-world studies, it has not yet been studied in New Zealand,” says the Malaghan Institute’s Dr Fran Priddy, VAANZ Clinical Director. “We want to understand how New Zealanders’ immune systems respond to the vaccine, particularly in populations likely at higher risk from COVID-19, such as Māori, Pasifika, and the elderly.”

June 2021: Geological investigations into silica deposits around New Zealand hold the prospect for a renewal of a local sand mining and processing industry for glass manufacture. The NZIMMR is looking to work with sand producers to create a high-value, New Zealand supply chain.

At one-time silica sand was mined in Northland, and supplied to glassworks in Auckland. That silica requirement is now imported from Perth, Western Australia, at 60,000 tonnes a year.

Sourcing silica from New Zealand instead of Australia would reduce the carbon miles of transport, and create New Zealand jobs.

NZIMMR’s initial industry review has revealed several promising silica sand deposits in the North Island and the South Island, with further investigations underway.

Silica sand. Image: NZIMMR.

June 2021: The durability, performance, and deterioration rate of polymers are influenced by their material composition and climatic conditions. Simply put, due to New Zealand’s high ultraviolet (UV) levels, most commercial organic-based polymers used in construction degrade when exposed to the sun.

We're all aware that New Zealand has high levels of UV and that these can quickly burn our skin if we forget to apply sunblock.

Our absolute UV levels and UV index numbers are, on the face of it, a bit surprising given that similar latitudes on other continents are typically about 20% lower than the UV levels we have here.

Spectral irradiance measured at Lauder, 12.45pm, 12 January 1991.

June 2021: An extra six minutes in heart surgery reduced the risk of stroke for years in one of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand - MRINZ's latest trials published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common condition where the upper chambers of the heart don't always beat in a coordinated way with the lower chambers. People can experience palpitations when this happens, and in a certain part of the heart — the left atrial appendage — this can lead to blood becoming stagnant and forming clots. These clots are at risk of dislodging and being pumped into the brain, where they can block vessels to cause a stroke.

The left atrial appendage can be surgically 'blocked off' in several ways to prevent clot formation, theoretically preventing this kind of stroke in patients with AF. However, until now, there has been no definitive evidence to prove whether this is effective.

June 2021: In the first of a monthly science series, Malaghan Institute of Medical Research Director Professor Graham Le Gros talks to Samoa Capital Radio's Afamasaga T Moresi and Alo Brian Duffy about immunology, COVID vaccines, and research underway at the Institute.

Recorded 18 May 2021 at Samoa Capital Radio in Porirua, New Zealand. Interview in English and Samoan.

For this interview and other videos featuring IRANZ members please see our video page in the link below

June 2021: Human hookworms show a remarkable ability to dampen down aggressive immune responses, offering an exciting potential for treating autoimmune or inflammatory diseases.

The Malaghan Institute's hookworm clinical therapy programme aims to explore the therapeutic benefits of the human hookworm Necator americanus. This Health Research Council-funded programme involves infecting volunteers with a controlled dose of hookworm, and monitoring how they affect their hosts' health and immune profile. The study has since moved onto working with patients with ulcerative colitis.

Dr Tom Mules, a gastroenterologist working with the Malaghan Institute, was recently interviewed on RNZ Nights to discuss the research programme.

Dr Tom Mules. Image: Malaghan Institute.

June 2021: New Zealand has seen dramatic changes in minimum wage policies since 2000. Motu researchers have investigated the motivations for minimum wages, the changes over time, and how they have affected workers' outcomes. Is a minimum wage policy as effective as claimed by its supporters, or as damaging as claimed by its critics?

The adult Statutory Minimum Wage in New Zealand has risen substantially (75% in real terms) since 2000. The minimum wage now directly affects about 9% of all Kiwi employees, but has much greater impact on teenage workers (57% of 16-17 year olds and 43% of 18-19 year olds in 2020).

“Surprisingly, it is hard to find a clear statement of what minimum wage policies actually aim to achieve,” says Dr Dave Maré of Motu Research.

The team presented the results of their research at a seminar in Wellington on 3 June.

May 2021: What happens to a steel-framed carpark if a car catches fire? Engineers who are interested in advanced calculations and an accurate prediction of the structural response of steel-framed carparks will find this HERA Report of interest, particularly in relation to structural fire design.

The report - R4-152, authored by Finite Element Analyst Nandor Mago, checks the validity of the simpler structural design methodology for steel framed carparks using detailed sequentially coupled thermal-stress analyses, which models a 17m x 30m composite floor system supported by steel framing.

The steel beams’ plastic deformation, the largest deflections and internal forces in critical sections of the secondary beams are extracted over the duration of the applied single car fire loading. In this report, two car fire scenarios were investigated.

May 2021: An innovative passive water treatment system, the world’s first full-scale vertical flow reactor (VFR), is becoming a reality at OceanaGold’s Reefton Restoration Project on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island. Scientists from Verum Group were instrumental in the design and installation of the system for the treatment of mine drainage.

The system removes heavy metals from water seepages before the water is gravity fed into Devil’s Creek. These metals, such as iron and arsenic, exist naturally inside the rock, but they could threaten the natural ecosystem if released at high levels into the environment.

Verum Group Senior Scientist Dave Trumm says the eyes of the mine-site environmental rehabilitation community around the world are now on New Zealand.

Construction is now underway on the world’s first full-scale vertical flow reactor to clean water of heavy metals at Reefton. Image: Dave Trumm, Verum Group.

May 2021: EECA has commissioned Motu Research to investigate the impact of heat pumps in homes with a heat pump installed under the EECA Warmer Kiwi Homes programme, which offers grants to lower-income homeowners for home insulation and/or an efficient heater.

Motu Research is working to determine if the health and wellbeing of the household improves because of using heat pumps. Their evaluation is also growing the public evidence base about what works best to make homes warmer, drier, and healthier.

Data collection began in early May 2021 and will end around 1 September 2021. Motu will publish the results in early 2022.

If you'd like to participate in this research, read more about it in the link below.

The aim of the EECA Warmer Kiwi Homes programme is to increase the number of people living in warm, dry, and healthy homes and to reduce avoidable hospitalisations and ill health due to housing-related conditions. Image: Motu Research.

May 2021: Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) images are usually meant to be static. But now, researchers from Mātai Medical Research Institute (Mātai), Stevens Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of Auckland and other institutions, report on an imaging technique that captures the brain in motion in real time, in 3D and in stunning detail, providing a potential diagnostic tool for detecting difficult-to-spot conditions such as obstructive brain disorders and aneurysms – before they become life threatening.

The new technique, called 3D amplified MRI, or 3D aMRI, reveals pulsating brain movement which could help researchers to non-invasively visualise brain disorders and inform better treatment strategies for tiny deformations or disorders that obstruct the brain or block the flow of brain fluids.

Researchers from the Mātai Medical Research Institute, in New Zealand, and Stevens Institute of Technology — and others – report a new and enhanced method to visualise difficult-to-spot brain conditions. Image: Mātai Medical Research Institute.

May 2021: Our oceans are becoming so noisy that it’s negatively affecting marine mammals says Cawthron Marine Ecologists Dr Deanna Clement and Dr Simon Childerhouse.

"While we’ve known for more than 70 years that whales and dolphins use sound to communicate across the oceans, it’s only been within the last few decades that we’ve had the technology to use sound as a means of studying them within their environment.

"At the same time, we are also beginning to realise just how noisy humans have made the oceans and the significant impact this has had on many marine mammal species including masking communication, displacing individuals from critical habitats, and even potentially causing strandings resulting in death," the pair write.

Radio New Zealand fisheries reporter Conan Young discusses the issue with Simon.

May 2021: New Zealand Brain Research Institute Director Dr Michael MacAskill was recently interviewed by RNZ's Jesse Mulligan on their latest research into Parkinson's.

Michael says some people’s Parkinson's disease progresses very rapidly while others have a more benign course of Parkinson’s and they want to find out why it happens faster or slower for different people.

“It seems to be that people who have younger onset Parkinson’s it tends to be a bit more benign, it tends to progress a bit more slowly. For people that get it a bit older, it’s a much more rapid progression of symptoms and the reasons for that are a bit unclear.”

After 200 years of studying the disease, it’s still not known what causes Parkinson’s but Michael says there are some unexpected risk factors.

Image: 123RF.

May 2021: RNZ Country Life - "If Romeo Bragato were alive today, he'd be pleased as punch to visit the Bragato Research Institute, a wine laboratory set up in his name just on a year ago.

"The European viticulturalist was said to be disillusioned and frustrated when he left New Zealand in the early 1900s.

"His experimental winemaking here and advice to the government on planting grapevines was largely ignored and his recommendations lay forgotten for over 60 years."

Bragato's Research Winery Manager Tanya Rutan is interviewed by RNZ's Sally Round on the Country Life programme on the role of the Bragato Research Institute.

Tanya Rutan, Bragato Research Institute Winery Manager. Image: RNZ/Sally Round.

May 2021: Publications are a critical part of many of Verum Group's research projects to provide clarity and demonstrate the quality of science completed by the research group. They have recently updated their research publications page and are keen to engage with anyone interested in their research. Take a look - everything from recognising the calls of individual birds for non-invasive monitoring to best practice for restoring old mining sites and treating acid mine drainage.

Image: Verum Group.

May 2021: A new underwater acoustic recording network being established by Cawthron Institute marine ecologists is opening up a ‘world of information’ about the lives of New Zealand’s marine mammals in order to better protect them.

Acoustic monitoring devices have been moored in a number of coastal locations around the South Island in order to track numbers, locations and movements of our marine mammal populations.

In a recent interview with Radio New Zealand, Cawthron research lead Dr Deanna Clement explained that with such a massive ocean estate, New Zealand remains largely in the dark as to the whereabouts of marine mammals.

Image: Claudia Beer, Pixabay.

May 2021: Cawthron Institute experts Dr Jane Symonds and Dr Serean Adams were featured on TVNZ 1 news talking about how Cawthron's world-leading research is supporting the growth of New Zealand's King Salmon industry by improving our understanding of fish health. They have made a surprising discovery - the fish seem to have their own individual needs and behaviours just like humans do.

Fish at Nelson's Cawthron Institute are put to the test

“It’s a gym for fish. We put them on the treadmill and see how well they perform, and that’s just like measuring that on an athlete, right? So we’re measuring their oxygen consumption, we’re measuring their metabolic rate, and trying to understand how much energy are they using,” says Cawthron Institute’s, Serean Adams.

April 2021: It’s been roughly eighteen months since COVID-19 first appeared on our radars, and just over a year since New Zealand went into its first lockdown, grinding the country to a halt. Amid global social and economic upheaval, it has been a remarkable feat of international scientific endeavour and cooperation that we now have a safe and effective vaccine to the virus that has to date been given to over one billion people worldwide.

Pandemics are nothing new, but our collective response to this most recent one has been. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the challenges and opportunities faced by the scientific community, and considerable achievements under unprecedented pressure and expectation, will pave the way for how we deal with the next one.

COVID-19 has highlighted just how important fundamental research in immunology and infectious disease is to protecting our global community. Image: Malaghan Institute.

March 2021: The latest IRANZ newsletter is out now. Stuffed full of science research goodness from New Zealand's independent research organisations.

Read all about IRANZ's new research members; Malaghan experts weigh in on challenges with COVID-19 vaccines; MRINZ notes death rate down in NZ; MRINZ: Death toll from COVID-19 likely underestimated; HydroMetrics finds high levels of nitrate in water samples; Bragato's first vintage; Red seaweed hailed a ‘game changer’ in reducing carbon footprint; Aqualinc tables new report on Christchurch's groundwater levels; Xerra: Fishy behaviour?; Verum Group Acid-Base Accounting sets international benchmark; WSP: Quality of life ultimate goal for 'smart' communities; Mackie Research takes ACTIVATION role to boost Auckland’s active travel; Land and Water Science working on Landscape DNA; Malaghan: New drug shows promise in promoting MS recovery; and much more.

The BRI research winery completed all of its scheduled 2020 vintage trials. Image: Jep Gambardella, Pexels.

March 2021: At a special meeting of IRANZ members on 17 March, Dr John Bright, CEO of Aqualinc, officially handed over the reins as Chair to Dr John McDermott, CEO of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research.

IRANZ continues to grow in size as New Zealand’s independent research sector continues to expand. With practical, real-world applications of their science, Independent Research Organisations (IROs) are key to New Zealand increasing business expenditure on research and development, and are a crucial pillar in a high-performing science system.

To that end, IRANZ welcomed four new members to the fold at the March meeting.

CEO of Aqualinc and outgoing IRANZ Chair Dr John Bright, left, Royal Society Te Apārangi President Prof. Wendy Larner and Chief Executive Prof. Dame Cynthia (Cindy) Kiro, and newly elected IRANZ Chair Dr John McDermott (Executive Director of Motu Economic and Public Policy Research) at BRANZ for IRANZ's special meeting. Image: Louise Thomas.

March 2021: Follow the link for more details on the March 2021 news briefs from our Independent Research Organisations.

• Motu’s John McDermott on Covid and the Economy at the Speaker’s Science Forum
• Charles Eason elected as a Fellow of the RSNZ
• Pūhoro STEM summer internship at Bragato Research
• Pūhoro STEM summer internship at Lincoln Agritech
• BRI welcomes Matt Mayernick
• Cawthron celebrates 100 years
• HERA goes carbon zero
• LASRA: Science fun for future scientists

Motu’s Dr John McDermott on Covid and the Economy at the Speaker’s Science Forum at Parliament. Image: Emma Williams, Motu.

March 2021: LASRA hosted New Zealand's first Collagen Symposium this month in Wellington. LASRA Director Geoff Holmes says innovations in the market are growing demand for a diverse range of collagen products from medical devices to sustainable packaging. "Collagen forms a scaffold to provide strength and structure to the human body. Exogenous collagen is increasingly being used in cosmetic fillers and revitalisers, as well as wound dressings, tissue scaffolds and prosthetics. Collagen food supplements are said to have benefits for skin health, joint pain, bone loss, heart health and muscle mass."

Geoff says current manufacturing capacity cannot keep up with local demand, but there's a need to move quickly to take advantage of this situation to build a long term future for collagen processing in New Zealand.

The conference in Wellington was a high-level educational and motivational event targeted at industry, providing guidance on collagen's market potential, the hurdles in getting to market, and an opportunity for research groups and manufacturers within New Zealand already working in the field to network and present their findings.

March 2021: In February, HydroMetrics, a division of Lincoln Agritech, set up a water testing station on the Lincoln University campus. For a gold coin donation for the Farmstrong charity, anyone could bring in a rural drinking water sample in a clean jar or container and HydroMetric’s staff would test it for nitrates.

For this first trial, people brought in 59 water samples from local drinking water wells. Of those samples, 44 people agreed to allow HydroMetrics to share the results anonymously so others in the region could understand the potential issues.

HydroMetrics recorded two samples that exceeded the World Health Organisation (WHO) Maximum Allowable Value (MAV) of 11.3 mg/L Nitrate Nitrogen (NO3-N), but they were troubled to find that there were a large number of wells recording more than 50% of MAV.

Testing for nitrates at the pop-up water testing station on the Lincoln University Campus. Image: HydroMetrics.

March 2021: Land and Water Science are currently working on a Sustainable Farming Fund Project to provide a web-based portal to bring Physiographic Science into the hands of the rural community so that they're empowered and able to make informed decisions regarding land management.

Director Dr Clint Rissmann says providing farmers direct access to ‘state of the art science’ in an easy to understand format will enable them to optimise the natural capital of their properties and make informed land-use decisions to minimise environmental impacts.

"Through this project, we are working directly with farmers and primary industry groups to design an open-access web-based platform. A steering group of farmers has been formed to advise our scientists how the rural community would like the science to be presented on the portal. We are also inviting representatives from related industries and interested groups to participate in an advisory capacity. This will ensure a platform is produced that is simple to access and easy to understand by the end user."

Landscape DNA portal.

March 2021: The knowledge of what is going on with infrastructure in a city helps city managers to anticipate and plan for changes needed to investment and operations. For this, good geospatially-referenced data is crucial to making good decisions. City managers also need the capacity to analyse, diagnose, and communicate in order to improve quality of life for citizens – the ultimate goal of being ‘smarter’.

The management of public assets faces a similar challenge of ensuring that the goal of managing assets is to improve quality of life for the communities they serve.

A Building Better project by WSP’s Vivienne Ivory, Kai O’Donnell, and Phil McFarlane investigated how smaller local authorities can harness the power of smart data to analyse and diagnose infrastructure performance and allow communities to participate in decisions over the whole life of assets.

March 2021: Verum Group Scientists Drs Hana Christenson and James Pope have developed some of the only standardised reference materials for acid-base accounting that are commercially available in the world.

James says it isn’t rocket science, but it was something that was lacking for those with a need for this type of geochemistry. Acid-Base Accounting is a suite of tests used in mining and land rehabilitation. The tests characterise mine waste so best-practice management can be carried out and problematic discharges (leachate) such as acid mine drainage can be minimised.

A South Island robin/kakaruwai checks out water quality parameters at a Verum Group downstream monitoring site on the West Coast - reminding us of the importance of site rehabilitation not just for human health. Image: Hannah Christenson, Verum Group.

March 2021: Ensuring that COVID-19 vaccines are developed and deployed for those most vulnerable is a global challenge but can be addressed in a number of ways, according to a group of international vaccine experts in a review published in Science Translational Medicine.

The Malaghan Institute’s Dr Fran Priddy, Clinical Director of Vaccine Alliance Aotearoa New Zealand – Ohu Kaupare Huaketo (VAANZ), was among those to contribute her expertise on the current vaccine response, outlining both the successes and key challenges remaining in this global pandemic.

“COVID-19 vaccine development has been a remarkable success at this point. However vulnerable populations such as the elderly and those in low-resource settings may require additional attention to benefit from the field’s advances.”

The Malaghan Institute’s Dr Fran Priddy. Image: Malaghan.

March 2021: Wall design will play a key role in the improved thermal performance of new houses as we move toward net-zero carbon construction. Recent BRANZ-funded research found problems with current wall construction, but another research project has developed high-performance details that take us ahead.

Walls in New Zealand houses are often constructed to Building Code minimums, and these are already low by international standards. New Zealand allows more than twice the heat loss through the walls of new houses than the UK and almost three times more than the EU. However, a set of construction details that deliver significantly improved thermal performance have been developed in a project involving the Passive House Institute New Zealand (PHINZ) and BRANZ. This is not theoretical – the results are from homes that have been consented and constructed.

Timber frame wall with an additional timber batten insulated service cavity. Image: BRANZ

March 2021: The PlantTech Research Institute and eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) have joined forces to boost AI computing power and tech for the agritech sector.

Their work will remove computer processing bottlenecks that limit the ability of data scientists to train artificial intelligence (AI) models that learn from high volumes of complex data. It will also reduce the turnaround times for current AI research. Horticulture and produce are among the first New Zealand industries to benefit from this faster AI computing infrastructure, with PlantTech scientists using it to explore new approaches to data-driven horticulture in key sectors, including kiwifruit.

PlantTech's Research Director Ian Yule says they can achieve a lot with the computing systems currently available. "However, there are challenges that we simply cannot address without the step up to a true supercomputing architecture.”

PlantTech's Research director Prof Ian Yule and Chief Executive Dr Mark Begbie. Image: PlantTech.

March 2021: Asparagopsis, a native red seaweed, has huge potential as a methane-busting cattle feed supplement - studies show the superfood can cut methane emissions from cattle by up to 90 per cent. Cawthron Institute's Dr Johan Svenson spoke with TVNZ One News about the work Cawthron scientists are doing to learn about its life cycle and develop reliable methods of scaling-up production to the levels required to make a real-world impact.

Farms for the seaweed are in the process of being established and the lifestock feed supplement is expected to hit the market in 2022.

Read the Cawthron opinion piece developed to support the TVNZ One News story: Cawthron’s approach to researching ‘methane-busting’ asparagopsis.

Johan Svenson on TVNZ 1

March 2021: BRANZ research is expanding our knowledge of how multiple factors influence building material corrosion. This will lead to a new way of mapping corrosivity and allow the right materials to be specified for different environments.

Material for buildings contribute around 16–24% of residential building development costs. The materials are required to meet the durability requirements of the New Zealand Building Code to address potential corrosion risks. This poses huge challenges since corrosion is influenced by multiple factors and varies considerably across New Zealand’s diverse and unique environments.

BRANZ national material environmental performance monitoring. Image: BRANZ

March 2021: The number of deaths (mortality) that COVID-19 is responsible for may be grossly underestimated. Counts based only on the 'cause of death' recorded on a death certificate may not capture deaths from undiagnosed COVID-19, or deaths as a result of a strained care system (delaying investigation and care). MRINZ scientists say it is likely that COVID-19 related deaths have been underestimated by at least 35%.

In a paper published in the European Respiratory Journal, they say deaths related to COVID-19 may be better accounted for by looking at 'excess mortality', which is the difference between the actual and expected deaths from all causes.

MRINZ plotted the weekly reported all-cause mortality in 2020 against average death rate and reported COVID-19 deaths in 22 countries. The above chart shows USA, the patterns of higher than expected actual deaths are mirrored in other countries. Image: MRINZ.

March 2021: Overall wellbeing increased in New Zealand in the first COVID-19 lockdown from late March to early May 2020, says Motu Senior Fellow, Dr Arthur Grimes in a recent contribution to the British Medical Journal.

This improvement happened in most population sub-groups, even among more disadvantaged groups. Also, self-rated health and self-rated financial wellbeing increased. These improvements were not so for many other countries.

Dr Grimes says New Zealand's performance in lockdown is because of how the lockdown was done: both comprehensively and effectively. He said that wellbeing and health should not be regarded as competing aims to be traded off: both can be achieved through an effective lockdown accompanied by other supportive policies.

March 2021: The Cawthron Institute is set to advance its world-leading algae research with the launch of its National Algae Research Centre in May this year.

Thanks to $6m of funding from the Government’s Provincial Growth Fund, the Centre will enable Cawthron to expand its internationally recognised work in the rapidly growing algae sector and create value for existing and new partners.

Based at Cawthron’s Aquaculture Park at the Glen, the National Algae Research Centre will predominantly focus on macroalgae (seaweed).

Seaweed cultivation is the world’s fastest growing aquaculture sector, with the global seaweed industry worth more than US$6bn per year. There are many species that have the potential to be transformed into a range of commercial products as well offering environmental benefits to counteract climate change.

Image: Cawthron Institute.

March 2021: Xerra Earth Observation Institute has won a $100K AUD research bid to help the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation’s Analytics Lab Program (AGO Labs) build new industry capability in the areas of machine learning and analytics.

Xerra and AGO analysts will be working together to develop a model to detect anomalies in maritime vessel behaviour at sea, in particular identifying vessels whose behaviour (e.g. speed, location, track shape) deviates from the normal activity for vessels of its type. This work will enable AGO analysts to focus their attention on vessels that are anomalous, or behaving in out of the ordinary ways.

This work will be a continuation of Xerra’s research and algorithm development for the Starboard platform - using vessel transponder data (AIS) and satellite data to analyse vessel behaviour at sea, searching for evidence of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, human rights abuses, and other related activities.

Xerra's Starboard Maritime Intelligence program to monitor vessels entering New Zealand's waters. Image: Xerra.

March 2021: IRANZ would like to extend a warm welcome to Volker Kuntzsch, the new Chief Executive of the Cawthron Institute, to New Zealand's independent research fold as he formerly picks up the reins at Cawthron today.

Volker has a distinguished international career in the seafood industry spanning more than 30 years. He was formerly the President of Nippon Suisan (USA), and President and CEO of King & Prince Seafood Corp (USA), before joining New Zealand seafood company Sanford as CEO in 2013. He has also held senior executive roles in Tokyo, Namibia, Germany, and the United Kingdom, and holds a Master of Science from the University of Stellenbosch.

“I am humbled by the privilege to lead Cawthron’s highly reputable team in delivering world-class science for a better future. It is almost impossible for me to contain my excitement about embarking on this purposeful journey to help understand and realise Aotearoa New Zealand’s opportunities in aquaculture and the freshwater environment,” says Volker.

Image: Cawthron Institute.

February 2021: Hamish Mackie from Mackie Research has a vision of cities that are safe and easy for walking, biking, and other forms of active transport. Places where people choose and are encouraged to take an active role in getting to the destinations of their daily life, whether getting to work, accessing services and amenities, seeing whānau and friends, or just visiting our public places such as parks and gardens. It’s a vision that sees our population as physically active, socially connected, and allows our older citizens to stay active for longer and age in place supported by family and friends.

“COVID-19 has given us the opportunity to think about different transport and travel options that could benefit people as well as the planet. Walking, biking, and using public transport can offer effective and equitable ways to increase physical activity across the whole population." Image: Hamish Mackie.

February 2021: Can deep artesian groundwater contribute to liquefaction hazard? A recent paper in Engineering Geology by Simon Cox, GNS Science, Helen Rutter, Aqualinc, and others explores the potential impacts of deep artesian groundwater under Christchurch on the liquefaction that occurred during the 2010/2011 earthquake sequence.

Vast quantities of liquefaction repeatedly inundated properties around Christchurch during the Canterbury earthquakes, causing significant damage to buildings and urban infrastructure. Dr Rutter says there is a strong spatial correlation between the occurrence of ejected sediment with groundwater pressure in deep aquifers.

Image: Helen Rutter, Aqualinc.

January 2021: A recent Malaghan Institute collaboration with Harvard Medical School is changing how we think about cells in the immune system and the role they play in generating immune responses.

Current thinking is that each type of immune cell plays a distinct role in generating a specific immune response. However, recent findings published in Nature Immunology throw water on this belief, proposing that for at least certain types of immune cells, they have a spectrum of different responses, depending on the type of threat they encounter. Rather than one cell equals one function, some immune cells change how they respond each time they encounter a new stimulus. This has far reaching implications in understanding the immune response and designing new therapies and treatments.

An artistic image of an immune cell. Image: Malaghan Institute of Medical Research.

January 2021: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterised by chronic inflammation in the brain which causes progressive damage to neural cells resulting in physical and cognitive disability. While MS symptoms can be managed by controlling this inflammation, to date there are limited options for the repair and recovery of these damaged neurons.

However, a recent publication by Malaghan Institute MS programme leader Professor Anne La Flamme, Victoria University of Wellington Associate Professor Bronwyn Kivell, and University of Kentucky Professor Thomas Prisinzano has shown that the drug nalfurafine has the potential to not only slow the accumulation of disability, but also to restore function in experimental models of the disease.

The MS research team. Image: Malaghan Institute of Medical Research.

January 2021: Aqualinc's new report on the impacts of earthquakes and sea level rise on shallow groundwater levels across Christchurch city has been received by the Christchurch City Council’s Three Waters and Infrastructure Committee.

The investigation used a combination of analysis of data from the Christchurch shallow piezometer network and groundwater modelling, partially using Aqualinc’s Canterbury Groundwater model.

The work forms part of CCC’s multi-hazard study to inform floodplain management.

“This is a gap-filling report that will help us understand the impacts that future groundwater level changes may have across Christchurch city, adding to our knowledge base on natural hazards,” says CCC’s Head of Three Waters and Waste Helen Beaumont.

The report also involves input from Beca and Seequent.

January 2021: The BRI research winery completed all of its scheduled 2020 vintage trials, allowing winery staff and industry clients to reflect on the process as well as the research outcomes.

From the 2020 vintage, the research winery completed nine commercial trials involving 67 ferments of both red and white wines, in addition to running their own research and process validation trials. The trials covered a diverse range including understanding the subtleties of how different yeasts influence Marlborough Sauvignon blanc flavours, through to measuring the impact of viticultural practices on wine flavours and colour.

“While vintage 2020 will be remembered as a most unusual harvest due to Covid-19, the fruit was healthy, disease free and ripened to produce some outstanding wines. The research winery was privileged to continue its operation under lock down with much success,” says Research Winery Manager Dr Tanya Rutan.

Image: Jep Gambardella, Pexels.

January 2021: Elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic has unsurprisingly resulted in a marked increase in the death rate. This has not, however, been the case for New Zealand. The team at the Medical Research Institute (MRINZ) have recently published a striking observation in The Lancet - that in 2020 the number of deaths decreased about four weeks into the first Alert Level 4 lockdown, falling below that expected based on mortality data from 2011-2019. Interestingly, death rates continued to remain low, even after the Alert Level was reduced and lockdown ended.

The continued reduction in weekly deaths might be partly due to the lack of an influenza epidemic in New Zealand in 2020. If fewer deaths were related to road traffic accidents, occupational causes, air pollution, and delayed access to healthcare, for example, these would be expected to rise again following the easing of public health measures like lockdown. Fortunately, this has not been the case. This is a contrast to the experience of many countries facing significantly increased mortality due to direct and indirect effects of COVID-19.

All case mortality in NZ by week: The teal line for 2020 mortality diverges from the expected death rate, and remains about 11% lower, from about four weeks into the first Alert Level 4 lockdown (pink area). Image: MRINZ.