Search Marsden awards 2008–2017
Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Stop or go? Unravelling the mechanisms behind lymphatic vessel patterning.
Recipient(s): Dr JW Astin | PI | The University of Auckland
Professor SK Bohlander | AI | The University of Auckland
Professor TF Schilling | AI | University of California, Irvine
Public Summary: Inappropriate lymphatic vessel growth is an important component of chronic inflammatory disorders and cancer metastasis. Cancer is the leading cause of death in New Zealand and mortality is frequently caused by the secondary spread of tumour cells to distant organs in the body via ectopic tumour lymphatic vessels. In contrast, lymphatic hypoplasia or dysfunction causes the painful and incurable accumulation of fluid (lymphoedema) and is a significant survivorship issue for women following axillary lymph node removal during treatment for breast cancer. Remarkably, we know almost nothing about the guidance cues and molecular mechanisms that dictate where lymphatic vessels grow in different tissues and this knowledge is fundamental to the design of new therapies to treat these lymphatic diseases. Using a zebrafish model of lymphatic development, we have created the first ever map of the embryonic lymphatic vasculature and used this to identify a lymphatic vessel that grows along craniofacial cartilage. Laser ablation or genetic disruption of this cartilage inhibits lymphatic growth suggesting that it expresses essential pro-lymphatic guidance factors. We will use this lymphatic-cartilage interaction to identify novel mechanisms of lymphatic vessel growth regulation and guidance that may be used to develop treatments for lymphatic-related diseases.
Total Awarded: $820,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr JW Astin
Panel: BMS
Project ID: 16-UOA-054
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2014
Title: Strain-engineered lead-free ferroelectric thin films
Recipient(s): Dr EJ Anton | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Public Summary: Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) are devices that combine electronic and mechanical functions like sensors or micromotors on a single chip. For example they are used as motion sensors in mobile phones or for optical image stabilisation in cameras. Ferroelectric thin films are crucial parts of MEMS, providing both sensing and actuating functionalities. Commercially used ferroelectric materials, however, contain lead which urgently needs to be replaced by non-toxic lead-free materials to allow their safe widespread application. The major challenge facing lead-free thin films is improving the temperature stability of their ferroelectric properties. This project aims to overcome this obstacle by growing epitaxially strained films using rf-magnetron sputtering. Enormous shifts of the depolarisation temperature, the upper temperature at which ferroelectric properties are maintained, by several hundred degrees were observed in strained films. In this project I aim to apply the tool of strain-engineering to Bi1/2Na1/2TiO3-based thin films. The influence of the strain on the depolarisation temperature will be investigated by Raman spectroscopy. Carefully tuning the strain is then expected to improve performance properties and increase the ferroelectric transition temperature for more robust devices, thus opening the path to innovative MEMS.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Dr EJ Anton
Panel: EIS
Project ID: 14-VUW-204
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2008
Title: Streptococcal Surface DNase (SSD): a novel virulence factor?
Recipient(s): Dr T Proft | PI | The University of Auckland
Prof EN Baker | AI | The University of Auckland
Mrs HM Baker | AI | The University of Auckland
Assoc Prof PS Crosier | AI | The University of Auckland
Dr MV Flores | AI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: Group A Streptococcus (GAS) is a human pathogen that causes a wide range of diseases, including tonsillitis, necrotising fasciitis and streptococcal toxic shock. We have identified a novel GAS cell wall-attached DNase that we believe is involved in bacterial spreading and immune evasion by destroying the DNA backbone of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). Our aim is to analyse the NET-destroying potential of this DNase in-vitro and in-vivo using the zebrafish GAS disease model. Furthermore, we aim to solve the DNase protein structure to gain insights into the catalytic mechanism of this enzyme.
Total Awarded: $769,778
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Dr T Proft
Panel: BMS
Project ID: 08-UOA-010
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2015
Title: Stretchable polymer electronics that sticks and heals
Recipient(s): Professor J Travas-Sejdic | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr ARJ Nelson | AI | Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Organisation
Dr D Barker | AI | The University of Auckland
Public Summary: Inspired by Nature, future electronic materials and devices are expected to be soft, flexible, stretchable, adhesive and self-healing - eventually to be part of biomimetic prosthetic devices. This project will contribute towards achieving such ambition. We will develop electrically conducting plastic materials that are stretchable, adhesive, self-healing and easy to process. Our approach is general and based on functionalising conducting polymers with long-polymeric side chains. In spite of simple strategy, the understanding of how to design and control such complex material's properties is far from trivial and we aim to advance that knowledge.
Total Awarded: $790,000
Duration: 3
Host: The University of Auckland
Contact Person: Professor J Travas-Sejdic
Panel: PCB
Project ID: 15-UOA-337
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2017
Title: Stretching ice to the limit: New flow laws for ice sheets
Recipient(s): Professor DJ Prior | PI | University of Otago
Associate Professor DL Goldsby | AI | University of Pennsylvania
Dr HJ Horgan | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor CL Hulbe | AI | University of Otago
Dr D Kim | AI | Korea Polar Research Institute
Dr A Treverrow | AI | University of Tasmania
Public Summary: Ice deformation and ice-sheet flow control future sea level. Although strain in glacial ice is high, laboratory studies of ice deformation that yield mechanical data have only been conducted to low strains (<30%). Rock deformation experiments suggest that microstructural change and mechanical weakening in ice should continue to strains of >500%. Therefore, it is very likely that existing models underestimate the contribution of deformation to ice-sheet flow. We propose new torsion experiments (twisting a cylindrical sample) to quantify microstructural and mechanical evolution of ice to high strain (>500%). We will derive a new high strain ice flow law, from experiments at temperatures between -5°C and -30°C and across two orders of magnitude in strain-rate. We plan to test the extrapolation of the new flow law to natural (slow) strain rates in two ways; firstly by measuring the stresses needed to deform glacial samples at natural strain-rates and temperatures and secondly through a field experiment to constrain the deformation conditions in the shear margin of an Antarctic glacier. Micromechanical models will be used to explore how rates of different grain-scale processes contribute to microstructural and mechanical evolution and to provide simple strain-dependent parameters to use in large-scale ice sheet models.
Total Awarded: $960,000
Duration: 3
Host: University of Otago
Contact Person: Professor DJ Prior
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 17-UOO-052
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2010
Title: Stretching protein springs: How do cells respond to force?
Recipient(s): Dr AJ Sutherland-Smith | PI | Massey University
Prof SP Robertson | AI | University of Otago
Dr MA Williams | AI | Massey University
Public Summary: The transformation of cell type, the control of cell shape and cell movement are essential processes for human development. Remodelling of the cytoskeleton, the internal scaffold of cells, is central to these cellular capabilities. Through our previous genetic studies of a range of human diseases, characterised by skeletal malformations, we have found mutations within the filamin family of proteins. The filamins bind components of the cytoskeleton participating in tissue and organ formation in humans. How these disease-associated mutations affect human development is unclear to date.
The idea we will explore is that filamin acts as a spring-like force-sensing protein to measure force directly applied to cells and to gauge the stiffness of the surface to which cells are attached. We propose that the mutations found in patients affect tensioning of the filamin spring, causing abnormal cell responses and ultimately defective tissue development. We will investigate this hypothesis by comparing the elasticity and binding strength of filamin, both with and without the disease-associated mutations, in isolated cytoskeletal filament networks. We will also examine cellular effects by comparing the different responses of normal and patient cells to applied force and how they behave on surfaces of varying stiffness.
Total Awarded: $756,522
Duration: 3
Host: Massey University
Contact Person: Dr AJ Sutherland-Smith
Panel: BMS
Project ID: 10-MAU-116
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2016
Title: Stretching the celluloid ceiling: women's creative agency in the emergent Pacific film industry.
Recipient(s): Dr PT Stupples | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr C De Beukelaer | AI | University of Melbourne
Associate Professor K Teaiwa | AI | Australian National University
Public Summary: Fundamental tensions exist in high-level advocacy for the creative economy as a development strategy in the world’s poorer regions. Creative labour is notably precarious and gender inequalities are rife, particularly in the film industry which is known for its ‘celluloid ceiling’ that marginalises women from key behind-camera roles. Furthermore, the strong focus on economic outcomes reduces the space for articulating other forms of cultural or political agency derived from creative practice. Nevertheless, development donors and regional organisations are currently working to build the creative economy in the Pacific, and the film industry is a key sector in these efforts. This research investigates the tensions and possibilities of the new ‘creative economy for development’ agenda though analysing women’s agency in the emergent Pacific film industry. It maps women’s involvement in key behind-camera roles and investigates their aspirations, challenges and opportunities as film-makers through personal narrative interviews. These perspectives are analysed in relation to policy discourse and interviews with donors and industry personnel. In bringing the voices of Pacific women film-makers into closer dialogue with the bureaucratic process of ‘developing a creative economy’, this research seeks new understandings that transform this globalised discourse in terms more responsive to context, culture and gender.
Total Awarded: $300,000
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Dr PT Stupples
Panel: SOC
Project ID: 16-VUW-156
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2008
Title: Strongly correlated electrons in rare-earth nitrides
Recipient(s): Dr BJ Ruck | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Prof HJ Trodahl | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Prof WRL Lambrecht | AI | Case-Western Reserve University
Dr C Meyer | AI | Institute Neel, CNRS/UJF
Prof KE Smith | AI | Boston University
Dr NM Strickland | AI | Industrial Research Ltd
Dr GVM Williams | AI | Industrial Research Ltd
Public Summary: In 1972 Phillip Anderson argued that interactions among particles introduce entirely new physics at a macroscopic scale, beyond that of atoms or molecules; ferromagnetism and superconductivity are not found in isolated atoms.[1] Even today the description of macroscopic matter in the presence of quantum mechanical electron-electron correlations remains among the most pressing unsolved problems in condensed matter physics, but recent advances have begun to offer answers for the simple crystalline configuration of the rare-earth nitrides. We will build upon our world-leading film growth of rare-earth nitrides to develop further the theoretical treatment of this very difficult but important problem.
Total Awarded: $697,778
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Dr BJ Ruck
Panel: PSE
Project ID: 08-VUW-030
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Standard
Year Awarded: 2014
Title: Structure and uplift of the Transantarctic Mountains
Recipient(s): Professor TA Stern | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr JP Winberry | AI | Central Washington University
Dr H Horgan | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Professor GA Houseman | AI | University of Leeds
Professor A Nyblade | AI | Pennsylvania State University
Professor DA Wiens | AI | Washington University in St Louis
Public Summary: We propose a joint NZ–US lithospheric structure experiment to test models for the uplift mechanism of the Transantarctic Mountains (TAM) - one of the longest (3500 km) and highest (4500 m) mountain ranges on Earth. The TAM are unusual because they have formed in a rifting environment rather than a collisional one, and they have uplifted over a prolonged period ( ~ 60 my) compared to most other mountain ranges. We will test two end-member models: one where the mountains are supported by thickened crust and the other where the support is from a hot, shallow and convecting upper mantle. This question is a general one for some other mountain ranges of the world; we argue that the TAM is one of the better global localities to carry out a test. We will deploy 1000 seismographs along a ~ 300 km long line through the TAM and detonate a series of dynamite shots into the line. We will measure seismic velocities of the crust and upper mantle, and map crustal thickness variations. Our US partners will assist us with this by deploying an array of passive seismic recorders along, and beyond, the same transect.
Total Awarded: $790,000
Duration: 3
Host: Victoria University of Wellington
Contact Person: Professor TA Stern
Panel: ESA
Project ID: 14-VUW-085
Fund Type: Marsden Fund
Category: Fast-Start
Year Awarded: 2010
Title: Stuck on you: exploring the role of adhesins in microbial symbioses
Recipient(s): Dr D Gagic | PI | AgResearch
Dr GT Attwood | AI | AgResearch
Dr J Rakonjac | AI | Massey University
Public Summary: Alliances between microbes and/or eukaryotes are implicated in processes of great importance to life on earth, from nitrogen fixation and mycorrhizae to assistance in digestion of food and biofilm formation. An impressive example of microbial ecosystem with complex interactions between all inhabitants: bacteria, archaea, fungi and protozoa, is the fermentative forestomach of ruminant animals - rumen. These different interacting microbes play an essential role in the digestion of feed and the supply of energy to the host. The first step in formation of microbial partnerships, either permanent or temporary, is adhesion to each other, which is mostly mediated by surface-associated proteins. However, our understanding of the interactions and molecular mechanisms that drive these associations is hampered by our inability to cultivate most of rumen microbes. Here we will functionally identify the proteins responsible for mutualistic association between rumen methanogens and protozoa using a culture-independent approach. Such information will significantly improve our knowledge about molecular mechanisms of this remarkable alliance, while contributing broadly to areas such as ecology and biotechnology. Furthermore, this study will contribute to New Zealand’s prominent heritage in better understanding of rumen microbial ecology while providing valuable training in leading-edge genomics and phage display technologies.
Total Awarded: $260,870
Duration: 3
Host: AgResearch
Contact Person: Dr D Gagic
Panel: EEB
Project ID: 10-AGR-031