Search Marsden awards 2008–2017

Recipient(s): Dr LR Brownfield | PI | University of Otago
Prof D Twell | AI | University of Leicester

Public Summary: Asymmetric cell division, where a mother cell produces two distinct daughter cells, is a key mechanism for generating different cell types in multicellular organisms. In animals, the adoption of different fates by daughter cells often depends upon unequal segregation of regulatory molecules. The formation of new cell types by asymmetric division is also essential in the development of plants, but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood.

A critical asymmetric cell division in flowering plants occurs within pollen grains and is required for the creation of the male germ line. Here, the smaller of the two daughter cells is believed to receive factors that promote germ-line development, while the larger cell follows a default pathway and plays a supportive role.

We aim to discover how plant male germ-line fate is controlled by asymmetric cell division. To do this we will identify unequally segregated factors that control the production of a germ-line specific protein. This research will provide valuable information on how plants utilize asymmetric division to generate new cell types. It will also aid in the understanding of how plants make male gametes creating opportunities to manipulate fertility for the benefit of plant breeders.

Recipient(s): Prof RP Boast | PI | Victoria University of Wellington

Public Summary: In the 1860s New Zealand took the decisive step of remodelling Maori customary tenures by enacting the Native Lands Acts and by confiscating hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Taranaki and the Waikato and elsewhere. Maori land, as it is understood today, is no longer land in customary title but is based on freehold titles resting on grants from the Crown. New Zealand was not unique. In Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Hawaii, the United States, and the Philippines it was the same. Lands held on customary tenures, in some cases tenures that the Spanish and other colonial authorities had recognised for centuries, were radically transformed into new, individualised tenures. Why did such a diverse array of colonial and ex-colonial countries embark on this 'reform' at more or less the same time? What did the reformers hope to achieve, and where did they get their ideas from? If the same legal and economic ideas were at work in Guatemala, Hawaii and New Zealand, how then can the very different outcomes of the reform process in these diverse countries be explained? This project will explore these issues, providing a critical and comparative synthesis of relevance to a wide audience.

Recipient(s): Assoc Prof PB Blakie | PI | University of Otago
Dr AS Bradley | AI | University of Otago
Dr Y Kawaguchi | AI | University of Tokyo

Public Summary: A Bose-Einstein condensate is a quantum state of matter occurring in extremely dilute atomic gases at less than a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. By producing condensates in a special laser trap, where the atomic spins are liberated to organize themselves at will, a spinor condensate is realized. This is a unique system that simultaneously exhibits the phenomena of superfluidity (ability to flow without viscosity) and magnetism. Indeed, spinor condensates can spontaneously magnetize, just like metals such as iron, and are pristine and flexible systems for studying the microscopic origin of magnetism without the veil of complexity ever-present in solid-state systems.

We propose to develop a new theory of spinor condensates that will describe processes such as the dynamics of its phase transitions between different magnetic states, and how exotic spin vortices form. The key innovation of our theory is the inclusion of thermal effects: We will comprehensively treat the dynamics of atoms thermally excited out of the condensate. These thermal atoms play a crucial role in the system evolution as it transforms into new phases and in the nucleation of vortices. Our theory will provide a firm basis for future theory and experiments with spinor condensates.

Recipient(s): Dr DS Brown | PI | The University of Auckland
Ms NG Ellis | PI | The University of Auckland
Prof J Mane-Wheoki | PI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: Although Maori art has long been acknowledged as one of the world's great art traditions, no comprehensive history of Maori art has yet been written. Internationally, art historians have begun to dismantle boundaries around Western fine art that have purposefully excluded indigenous making and makers, and this coincides with a time when Maori are leading research into indigenous knowledges. We are ideally placed within these discussions to help transform the discipline globally through the development of an innovative Maori art history. Toi Te Mana will investigate the relationships, continuities, and commonalities between the art of the ancestors and their descendants using specially-developed art historical and Kaupapa Maori research methodologies. It will trace the development of the art from its Polynesian origins to the present day though a detailed and reflexive analysis based on case studies, ancestral narratives, historical records, investigations of art works and artist interviews. The project will make the experience of Maori art accessible and intelligible to local and international audiences in a major team-authored book with specialist dissemination through journal articles and conference presentations. Toi Te Mana will set an academic precedent as the first comprehensive indigenous art history created by and with indigenous peoples.

Recipient(s): Assoc Prof P Metcalf | PI | The University of Auckland
Prof HN Chapman | PI | DESY and Hamburg University
Prof JA Jehle | PI | Julius Kühn-Institute

Public Summary: Free electron X-ray lasers promise to revolutionize structural biology because diffraction data can be obtained before radiation degrades the sample. Granulovirus is a unique semi-crystalline biological nanostructure and an ideal test specimen to develop atomic resolution femtosecond imaging. The applicants are leading researchers in micro-crystallography (Metcalf), granulovirus (Jehle) and free electron laser imaging (Chapman). They began collaborating in 2011 and have already obtained preliminary femtosecond diffraction images. Funding is sought for the NZ team, who will be primarily involved in characterizing granulovirus, interpreting the results, determining atomic structures of granulovirus proteins and matching them to the free electron laser images.

Recipient(s): Prof DP Hamilton | PI | Waikato University
Dr SA Wood | PI | Carthron Institute
Prof DR Dietrich | AI | University of Konstanz

Public Summary: Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) produce toxins that can be fatal for animals and humans, and can impact entire aquatic ecosystems. Despite extensive research into the biological role of these toxins, their function remains a mystery. Microcystis is a widely-distributed genus of cyanobacteria which often forms toxic surface blooms. During a recent field-based lake study we demonstrated for the first time that Microcystis can “switch” toxin production on and off. We also experimentally induced Microcystis to rapidly alter toxin production with changes in cell densities. In the proposed research we will use in-lake chambers to understand how 'crowding' and environmental variables trigger and regulate toxin production. A computer simulation model will be used to identify the variables that influence toxin production in the experimental chambers. This model will guide the development of a whole-lake simulation model of Microcystis and toxin concentrations. These small-and large-scale models will help to unify understanding of toxin production from disparate field studies that have been constrained by sampling frequency and spatial extent. Using samples from the in-lake chamber experiments the dynamics of many thousands of genes of the Microcystis genome will be monitored to help unravel the long-debated functional role of their toxins.

Recipient(s): Dr M Johnston-Hollitt | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Prof RP Norris | AI | Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation 

Public Summary: Next generation radio telescopes such as the Murchison Wide Field Array (MWA) and Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) will provide astronomers with surveys of the radio sky to unprecedented sensitivities.This project aims to undertake the first study of a representative, volume-limited sample of radio relics and halos detected by the newly constructed MWA and ASKAP telescopes. This sample, with complimentary data observed from centimeter to meter wavelengths, will be ideal to address outstanding questions in astrophysics including: how cosmic ray particles found in these source were accelerated, where they originated from and how large-scale magnetic fields in the universe formed?

Recipient(s): Dr RL Kingston | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr AC Hausrath | AI | University of Arizona

Public Summary: Many disease-causing human viruses protect their RNA genome by packaging it into a helical protein-nucleic acid complex. The viral copying machinery - the polymerase - “walks” along this structure during viral replication. To ensure the polymerase remains on track, the underlying protein-protein interactions must be delicately balanced. This study will use biophysical and structural techniques to establish the mechanism by which the polymerase “feet” bind and release their helical template in mumps and related viruses. Transient protein-protein interactions, like those involved in polymerase movement, often couple the act of binding with a structural reconfiguration of one of the proteins involved. It is hypothesized that such structural plasticity confers advantage by reducing binding affinity while maintaining specificity. This allows the polymerase to take rapid steps forward without running off track. Our research will test this idea, which is relevant not just to the movement of molecular machines, but to other cellular processes reliant on transient binding, such as signaling and the regulation of gene expression. The results of our study will advance understanding of the RNA copying machinery of an important family of viruses, and illuminate how order and disorder may be balanced to produce protein complexes with a short lifetime.

Recipient(s): Dr RT Thompson | PI | University of Otago
Prof SA Cummer | AI | Duke University

Public Summary: Transformation optics is poised to revolutionize the process of designing electromagnetic and optical devices such as cloaking devices and super-resolution lenses. Recent progress in metamaterials research enables the physical realization of such devices. We will push the boundaries of transformation optics by expanding beyond its current limitations. This will be done by building upon a general theory of transformation optics we have developed in a series of recent papers. Our primary goals are to develop a geometric approach to nonlinear transformation optics, enable transformation optics to control and exploit complex material aspects of metamaterials like dispersion, dissipation, and active gain, and to develop new optimization tools in the way of special or restricted transformations.

These goals have been chosen to support a comprehensive strategy for the development of transformation optics. Progress in each area will dramatically improve the utility of transformation optics and contribute to the advancement of knowledge in the field. The outcome of this research will provide engineers with a more complete set of transformation optics tools with which to design complex metamaterial-based devices. This will pave the way for new innovations having global reach, and bring New Zealand to the cutting edge of this new science.

Recipient(s): Dr O Fialko | PI | Massey University

Public Summary: There is nothing that envisages the idea of classical physics more than a heat engine, but how can this stem from quantum mechanics? The time-reversible nature of quantum mechanics suggests that the simplest ingredient of a heat engine, the system being in thermal equilibrium, is not possible. Recently, however, thermal equilibrium has been demonstrated in several systems that were described fully quantum mechanically. Sadly, these were too complex to study heat engines.
Our recent theoretical work has shown for the first time that an isolated quantum system not only
demonstrates thermalization of a small number of atoms, but can also perform a heat engine cycle, where the laws of thermodynamics are put to work. If experimentally realised, this would be the smallest heat engine ever. Investigating the smallest heat engine will help us to deeper understand
the quantum origin of thermodynamics by addressing numerous open questions in this new and active research field and to look for its potential applications in quantum technology.