Search Marsden awards 2008–2017

Recipient(s): Prof PJ Hunter | PI | The University of Auckland
Prof S Bhattacharya | AI | University of Oxford

Public Summary: Organs grow within the embryo and developing fetus in response to genes being turned on at specific times and in specific locations. The control of gene expression is guided both by gene developmental programmes and by the changing physical environment of the growing organ. The mechanisms by which the physiological environment controls gene expression have been little studied and represent a very exciting field that requires the collaboration of molecular biologists, physiologists and bioengineers.

This project builds on world-leading cardiac research in the Auckland Bioengineering Institute at Auckland University and the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University to understand how hearts grow, using the developing mouse heart as a model. While the immediate goal is to test the hypothesis that interactions between cell proliferation, cytoskeletal reorganisation and shear stress play a role in the looping period in the formation of the mouse heart, the experimental techniques and models described here provide a foundation that can later be extended to other stages in the development of the heart and other organs. The techniques developed in this study will thus contribute to the understanding of phenotypic consequences of environmental influence on gene expression in the development of all organs.

Recipient(s): Dr R Knibbe | PI | Industrial Research Ltd
Dr S Wimbush | AI | Industrial Research Ltd

Public Summary: Nano-sized defects in YBCO superconductors are critical to the wire's current-carrying capacity. Transmission electron microscopy is used by international researchers to understand these complex defect structures and populations. However, exactly how defects affect the performance of superconductors is not fully understood. Using electron holography, an advanced transmission electron microscopy technique, superconducting YBCO samples will be examined in-situ. This proposal draws on international and New Zealand expertise in advanced electron microscopy and superconductivity to directly observe the role of defects in superconductors. Not only will this work be of significant international scientific interest, but will simultaneously expand expertise in advanced quantitative transmission electron microscopy techniques within New Zealand.

Recipient(s): Dr PD Skilling | PI | Auckland University of Technology
Dr ESTA Poata-Smith | AI | Auckland University of Technology

Public Summary: High levels of economic inequality are not just unfortunate for those “at the bottom”. Rather, they are associated with harmful effects for society overall. Opinion surveys show that the public, while uncomfortable with the existing unequal distribution of wealth, is also opposed to extending political measures (such as the tax or welfare systems) that might mitigate it. What lies behind this apparent paradox? And what might it mean for the democratic legitimacy of public policies addressing inequality? Existing research has identified public attitudes in this area, but the broad-but-shallow approach of opinion surveys has been unable to explore either (1) the reasons that lie behind those attitudes or (2) the extent to which they have been influenced by the perspectives that dominate public debates. This project deploys a potent combination of approaches (Q-methodology and engaged citizen deliberation) to work intensively with a relatively small number of carefully chosen participants, promising an in-depth, detailed understanding of their core values, their policy preferences and their reasoning strategies. By identifying the values and attitudes that prove most compelling in a process of informed and reflective deliberation, the project contributes towards the development of a consensus for addressing socially harmful levels of economic inequality.

Recipient(s): Dr I Muhammad | PI | School of People, Environment & Planning

Public Summary: Utilising cutting edge approaches of social science to the socio-political institutions of public transport, this project proposes an institutional approach to investigate the planning and design of public transport in Auckland. The concepts of 'path dependence' and 'path development' will be used to analyse public transport policies in Auckland and to explore the potential for transformative change in public transport development made possible as a result of the creation of the Auckland Council. A theoretical framework developed from three types of path dependence and development, namely political, social and discursive, will focus attention on the political-institutional relationships between central and local governments, the socio-institutional interactions between the Auckland Council and local communities and the discursive-institutional connections between beliefs and policy problems and their generated solutions. The analysis provides a timely opportunity to assess three dimensions of path dependence and to explore institutional change through engaging community perspectives and compiling alternative discourses. The research aims to demonstrate that successful public transport development is primarily dependent on the quality of democratic deliberations and the institutional capacity to redefine the problem and to generate new solutions.

Recipient(s): Dr Z Wu | PI | The University of Auckland
Prof WR Wilson | AI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: Conventional anticancer chemotherapy has low tumour specificity. To improve this, hypoxia-activated prodrugs (HAPs) were designed to be activated under the hypoxic conditions that prevail in many tumours. New Zealand is a leader in this field internationally, and a HAP developed at the University of Auckland (PR-104) is currently under clinical trial. However, ongoing studies have identified limitations that need to be rectified. Second generation analogues under development provide a unique opportunity to apply a novel pharmaceutical science strategy; we will explore a targeted delivery approach for exploiting abnormal microenvironmental features of tumours, in addition to hypoxia. The leakiness of tumour blood vessels allows accumulation of the HAPs carried by nanosized particles (liposomes) to the interstitial space. Low extracellular pH, a characteristic of hypoxic zones, will be used to release HAPs selectively from pH-sensitive liposomes. In addition, the released HAP will carry a weakly acidic group to drive their accumulation in cells by the extracellular/intracellular pH gradient. This multi-step targeting approach imposes pharmacokinetic tumour selectivity on HAP. We will test the hypothesis that dynamic changes in hypoxia and acidosis, resulting from fluctuating blood flow in tumours, can be exploited with pH-sensitive liposomes that have long tissue residence times.

Recipient(s): Dr O Morgenstern | PI | NIWA - The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd
Dr SM Dean | AI | NIWA - The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd
Dr AR Klekociuk | AI | Australian Antarctic Division
Dr AJ McDonald | AI | University of Canterbury
Dr G Rickard | AI | NIWA - The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd

Public Summary: We propose to investigate the impacts of ozone depletion and increasing greenhouse gases on Southern Hemisphere and New Zealand climate. 21st century climate will be governed by increasing long-lived greenhouse gases and by stratospheric ozone recovery due to the implementation of the Montreal Protocol. Stratospheric ozone depletion has been suggested to dominate recent Southern-Hemisphere climate change. The formation of the ozone hole may have caused precipitation regimes to move poleward. However, climate models which this finding is based on are generally characterized by one of two shortcomings. They either include an interactive ocean but exclude interactive ozone chemistry, or vice versa. In both cases, such models incompletely capture the climate impact of ozone depletion on near-surface climate. Within this project, we will build and validate a novel climate model encompassing both chemistry and an interactive ocean. We will use the model to project how long-lived greenhouse gases and ozone recovery will affect Southern Hemisphere and New Zealand climate. We will perform sensitivity studies addressing the relative influences of these two climate drivers. We will use a regional climate model to produce high-resolution projections for New Zealand which adequately account for the New Zealand topography and land-sea contrasts.

Recipient(s): Dr JA Young | PI | Victoria University of Wellington

Public Summary: Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been critical to the Chinese economic miracle, a driving force behind domestic reforms toward a market economy and an important site of interaction and learning for international companies operating in the Chinese market. Much debate however remains on how foreign investment impacts a developing state and how this can be measured. The role of FDI in rural Chinese development remains critically understudied. As central and local government implement policy to attract international agribusinesses to the developing agricultural sector this debate has taken on a new importance for Chinese development. This research uses New Zealand agribusinesses as cases to develop a model and a more nuanced understanding of how international agribusinesses interact with local conditions in rural China. This will be achieved through institutional analysis that incorporates qualitative and quantitative data, including interviews, secondary and primary source data collection and trade, investment and development statistics. Two detailed case studies of Fonterra and Maori businesses will be carried out in Hebei and Guizhou provinces to provide a comparison of investment in developed and developing rural regions. This will contribute to our understanding of international agribusiness operations and the role of investment in the development of rural China.

Recipient(s): Dr NR Beaven | PI | University of Otago
Dr BM Buckley | AI | Columbia University
Ms AK Carter | AI | University of Wisconsin
Dr SE Halcrow | AI | University of Otago
Dr WD Hamilton | AI | Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre

Public Summary: Factors influencing the decline of civilizations may differentially affect communities on the margins of a collapsing society. How these groups fare during societal decline is central to key archaeological questions concerning population response and societal re-emergence. Archaeological research on the Late Angkorian era maintains a lowland-centric focus, mainly due to previous lack of evidence for highland groups' biological, economic and cultural responses to state collapse. However, by the late 14th century AD and the decline of the great kingdom of Angkor, some ethnic minorities had socially and geographically distanced themselves in the Cardamom Mountains of southern Cambodia. Their existence is known only from burial sites that are unique relative to rituals recorded in Khmer history: re-burial of human bone in log coffins and exotic ceramics, on exposed rock ledges. The sites hold previously untapped information on demographics, health, environmental conditions, and trade relationships, which are essential for answering archaeological questions about responses of marginal cultures in an era of political, environmental, and economic change. Using novel integrations of methods to examine the archaeological information from different perspectives, we will develop the first-ever characterization of a highland culture’s lifeways and how they fared in the Late Angkorian era.

Recipient(s): Dr GR Willmott | PI | Industrial Research Ltd
Dr M Taylor | AI | Institute of Environmental Science and Research

Public Summary: Is it possible to tune the symmetry of a drop splash in situ? The importance of drop impacts is instantly familiar to us from raindrops, sprinklers, sprays, ink-jets, painting, and so on. Scientific interest in drop impacts has never been stronger, due to their rich complexity, intrinsic beauty, and the ready availability of high-speed video. Drops landing on extremely water-repellent (‘superhydrophobic’) surfaces are particularly interesting, because they often bounce, or splash and form ‘crowns’. To be superhydrophobic, a surface must have some roughness, so that water stays on top of ‘peaks’, and therefore easily skates across the surface. On man-made surfaces, the peaks can consist of a micrometre-scale array of posts, and it has recently been shown that the symmetry of drop impacts can match the pattern of these posts. We will carry out a pioneering survey of drops bouncing and splashing on superhydrophobic polymer micro-pillars, arranged in various patterns. Subsequently, we will create elastomeric substrates which enable tuning (control) of asymmetric splashes by mechanical stretching. Man-made superhydrophobic surfaces may be useful for condensation management, ice-prevention, or as self-cleaning surfaces, and there are many superhydrophobic surfaces in nature, such as leaves of the lotus plant and butterfly wings.

Recipient(s): Prof DR Grattan | PI | University of Otago

Public Summary: Several hormones produced in the body are transported across the “blood-brain-barrier” to exert important regulatory functions in the brain, but the mechanisms of transport are not well understood. Using the pituitary hormone, prolactin, as a model, this proposal describes an innovative transgenic strategy to test the hypothesis that prolactin receptors in the choroid plexus are critical for transporting prolactin into the brain. The study will provide novel insight into mechanisms regulating entry of large molecules across the blood-brain-barrier, a function of both physiological and pharmacological significance.