Search James Cook Fellowship awards 1996–2017

Public Summary: Modern medicine is both blessed and cursed with vast amounts of data over wide ranges of spatial and temporal scales. Understanding how these data relate requires multiscale modelling to link such measurements via their biochemical, biophysical, anatomical, and developmental processes. In order to share this understanding we must create precise descriptions of models, enabling them to be interpreted in ways that minimise the introduction of errors and ambiguities. This proposal aims to build on our world-leading expertise in biological model representation to create new tools, significantly expanding the classes of multiscale models able to be described, shared, and solved.

Public Summary: Connective tissue cells produce, and respond too, a mechanically functional extracellular matrix, but the cellular feedback mechanisms operating remain unclear. We have identified a structural continuum between the functional matrix, the sensory primary cilium, and the secretory Golgi response. My goal is to investigate the functionality of this structural continuum using a unique sheep model of Meckel-Gruber Syndrome where the mutated protein causes ciliary abnormalities, Golgi disruption, and abnormal secretion. I believe this proposal will advance fundamental primary cilia research in New Zealand, and will help define the cellular cybernetic function of the Matrix- Cilium-Golgi continuum.

Public Summary: Geometric integration is a novel approach to simulation, a key enabling technology. It is being used to study areas as diverse as the origin of the ice ages, the structure of large molecules, quantum mechanics, nanotechnology, and weather forecasting. These systems all have underlying geometric structures that influence the phenomena they generate. In geometric integration these properties are built into the computational methods, making them faster, more reliable, and often simpler than traditional approaches. The project will explore these geometric structures and study the design and performance of such novel computational methods.

Public Summary: The discovery of high temperature superconductors in 1987 heralded a scientific and technological revolution which, in spite of an unprecedented scale of investigation, is only now poised for breakthrough in understanding and application. New Zealand, and in particular the applicant, has had a key role in both discovery and development of these materials and this research is directed towards a final resolution of the fundamental and practical issues of high temperature superconductors. This will involve determining and understanding the systematic relationship between superconductivity at low temperatures and the unusual properties of the non- superconducting state at higher temperatures through a wide variety of complementary experiments to be carried out in N.Z. and at Cambridge University.

Public Summary: People pronounce sounds differently. Some New Zealanders, for example, pronounce ‘fear’ and ‘fair’ as if they rhyme, but many others pronounce them differently. Differences in pronunciation are not random, but are tied to the social characteristics, backgrounds, and identities of the speakers. Words are also distributed differently across people. For example, the word ‘library’ is more likely to be used by a female New Zealander than a male New Zealander; and the word ‘gentle’ is more likely to be produced by an older New Zealander than a younger one. While it used to be believed that our memories for words were quite abstract, there is now good evidence that we store detailed distributions of social and phonetic information for each word (termed “episodic word storage”). Listeners use their social knowledge about a speaker to affect how they listen to their speech, and we find it easier to identify words if they are produced by the speakers that are most likely to say them. For example, we are quicker to understand the word ‘library’ in a female voice than a male voice. Likewise, when words are spoken, they drift to resemble the accent characteristics of the speakers that produce them most, and of the linguistic environment that they most often occur in.
Professor Hay will conduct a series of experiments which explore hitherto untested hypotheses about the implications of this detailed episodic word storage for morphology (the study of word structure) and phonology (the study of sound structure). These areas have arisen from her many years of study in New Zealand English, and will draw on resources developed through the long-running Origins of New Zealand English project. She will then unify her findings from this study, as well as her previous findings in New Zealand English, into a coherent theory, which she plans to publish as a monograph.
The study will increase our understanding regarding accent and social variability in New Zealand, and contribute fundamental knowledge about mechanisms through which speakers from different backgrounds understand each other.

Public Summary: Structural biology, the study of the three-dimensional structures and function of biological macromolecules, is critical for our understanding of biological processes and the prevention and treatment of disease. However, the key technique for molecular structure determination, protein x-ray crystallography, is limited to only a small fraction of biological macromolecules. This project will develop new data processing techniques that are an essential component of a new method for imaging biological macromolecules using x-ray free-electron lasers. The outcome will be techniques that can be used by structural biologists, both in New Zealand and overseas, to study a much wider range of biological macromolecules than is currently possible.

Public Summary: I propose to research and write a biography of the philosopher Karl Popper (1902- 1994), regarded by many as the foremost philosopher of his time. Bom in Vienna, Popper emigrated to New Zealand in 1937, and then moved to London in 1945, remaining there until his death.
The biography will require interviews, library and archival research in Australia, New Zealand, North America and Europe and will be published as a book of about 600 pages, first in England and the US, and then in translation.

Public Summary: Enzymes are the extraordinary catalysts of the chemical reactions necessary for life to exist. For example, if unassisted, many critical reactions in metabolism would take millions of years. However, enzymes massively speed up the process, making life itself possible. Like all chemical reactions, enzyme-catalysed reactions are dependent on temperature. Therefore, temperature has a direct bearing on biological processes (reactions) on many scales, from a single metabolic process up to entire ecosystems. Predicting the behaviour of biological systems with increasing global temperature is one of the great challenges in modern biology.
Professor Vickery Arcus has developed a theoretical framework, termed Macromolecular Rate Theory (MMRT), to explain the behaviour of enzymes. MMRT is based on a foundation of statistics and the physics of temperature. MMRT has been verified against a large experimental dataset of individual enzymes, and Professor Arcus now questions whether MMRT can describe the temperature dependence of biological processes at increasing levels of complexity. He has been awarded a James Cook Research Fellowship to conduct research into this important biological question. He has assembled an interdisciplinary team of collaborators who work at the different scales from molecular dynamics, to plant physiology, soil science and climate modelling. Professor Arcus will coordinate, drive and synthesise the research to develop a foundational model extending MMRT to describe observed biological phenomena at these various different levels.
The results of this research will provide valuable knowledge about how to predict future behaviour of biological systems under the threat of increasing global temperature.

Public Summary: Statistical methods have revolutionised modern molecular biology. They have allowed biologists to reconstruct large portions of the ‘tree of life’. Flowever, the mathematical properties of these new statistical methods are poorly understood for certain important evolutionary questions. For example there is no good estimate of how much data is needed to infer an evolutionary tree accurately for a large set of species, using Maximum Likelihood. This project will apply new mathematical methods to address three fundamental questions concerning the inference of trees (and other parameters) using modem statistical methods.

Public Summary: I propose to use a 128-electrode EEG system to localise and track brain activity while people perform simple mental tasks. One of my aims is to examine the localisation of brain activity while people perform acts of mental rotation, a task that involves spatial imagery and that is complementary to language. Since the left side of the brain is specialised for language, I am especially interested in the role of the right side of the brain in spatial imagery. I also plan to extend this work to two clinical populations, people with dyslexia and people born without a corpus callosum, the main fibre tract connecting the two sides of the brain.