Search Rutherford Discovery Fellowship awards 2010–2017

Public Summary: Human language and our ability to cooperate in large groups of unrelated individuals are perhaps our two most important survival strategies. Yet the language we speak and whether we choose to cooperate are not coded in our genes, but are determined by the speech and social norms of those around us – these are inherently cultural phenomena that require a cultural explanation. Since Darwin, it has been recognized that, like species, cultures evolve. The power of Darwin’s theory was to link micro-scale processes of survival and reproduction to macro-scale trends in evolution over many generations. This research programme takes a Darwinian approach to two aspects of human culture, using methods and thinking from population genetics and evolutionary biology to answer questions about the cultural evolution of language and cooperation. On a micro scale, I will investigate how new sounds and words (in the case of language) and prosocial norms and behaviours (in the case of cooperation) spread through populations to become established in a broader cultural system. On a macro scale, language family trees will be used to trace genealogical relationships between cultures. By modelling the evolution of linguistic and cultural traits along these trees, I will identify general laws governing language change and the evolution of cooperative norms and institutions. More broadly, this work promises a better understanding of how words, behaviours, ideas, technologies, and ideologies spread through groups, and how complex cultural systems, like language or religion, emerge and evolve through time.

Public Summary: A New Zealand first space industry Rocket Lab has recently emerged giving the potential for low-cost, public access to space. The challenge is to understand and control highly complex dynamics of rockets travelling at speeds from supersonic to hypersonic (> Mach 6) and up to 150 km in altitude for high accuracy pointing. Standard control methods have long development times and high cost due to the large number of launches required. The major problem is that at these high speeds, shock waves and turbulence can occur, so that small asymmetries and design differences in the rocket can give completely different and unexpected control responses and dynamics. There are also random disturbances affecting the rocket from the atmosphere which are virtually impossible to predict prior to launch. This proposal will build a mathematical model of the rocket as it's travelling through space, including directly identifying random wind loads to allow prediction and stabilization of the rocket. This approach will avoid the need for costly trial and error type runs to tune the control systems and significantly reduce the typically long turn around time required to launch and accurately position a payload. Data will be obtained from smaller scale launch vehicles developed at the University of Canterbury and the larger scale launches of Rocket Lab. There will also be wind tunnel testing with controlled turbulence to test the control algorithms on conditions not previously 'seen'. The solutions developed will be applicable in many other areas of aerospace and industry automation in general. The knowledge gained will develop unique capability in New Zealand for training both undergraduate and postgraduates to enter cutting edge space industry research and development.

Public Summary: Like all cellular life, bacteria are parasitized by viruses. These bacterial-specific viruses are the most genetically diverse and numerically abundant biological entities on the planet with an important role in global cycles and processes. To compete, bacteria have evolved mechanisms that provide protection from continual invasion by viruses and other foreign elements. Resistance systems known as CRISPRs were recently discovered and equip bacteria with a sequence-specific ‘adaptive immune system’ with memory of past viral invasions. CRISPRs are widespread in bacteria and use small RNA molecules to interfere with invading viruses and foreign genetic elements. Our proposed research will enable us to answer a number of key questions such as 1) how and when these systems are activated, 2) do they target DNA or RNA of invading elements and what is the sequence specificity required and 3) what are the functions of the proteins involved in the various steps of this interference pathway? Our results will reveal significant mechanistic insight about these widespread bacterial ‘adaptive immune systems’ and will have broader implications due to the global prevalence of bacterium-viral interactions.

Public Summary: From apparently simple beginnings, some forms of life have evolved enormous complexity. Yet, understanding how complexity has evolved is not trivial. Complexity per se is not selectively advantageous. Consequently, rather than being a direct product of natural selection, the complexity of molecular systems and processes is generally viewed as an evolutionary by-product. What is it a by-product of is less clear however. A number of models by which systems may evolve to greater complexity have been proposed, including the process of gene duplication and subsequent functional divergence of the copies. However, few of these models have been directly tested. I aim to test four specific hypotheses relating to biological complexity, all of which examine so-called constructive neutral evolutionary mechanisms through which complexity may emerge: 1) that in populations where genetic drift will be a significant evolutionary process, non-adaptive mechanisms of complex gene expression, such as editing, may emerge, 2) that some horizontally mobile elements may result in increased complexity of a system without directly benefitting the recipient, 3) that retrotransposition (a copy-paste gene proliferation process) of small RNAs in eukaryote genomes creates greater complexity through emergence of mosaic expression patterns, despite there being no net increase in biological function, 4) that large multisubunit protein complexes are refractory to chimaerism following endosymbiosis. I will test these hypotheses using standard experimental or comparative genomics methods.

Public Summary: Healthy ecosystems are expected to be more resilient to climate change. Therefore, understanding and managing existing anthropogenic stressors is essential to mitigating the future effects of climate change. Kelp forests represent highly valuable coastal ecosystems that provide food and shelter for a myriad of other species. However, these ecological services are threatened by a variety of human-induced stressors, and climate change is expected to exacerbate these effects. Recent research has indicated that while the resilience of kelp forests may be affected by increasing temperature these effects are likely to be compounded severely by existing anthropogenic factors such as reduced water clarity due to sedimentation. In New Zealand and worldwide sedimentation is considered a major threat to coastal ecosystems that is likely to increase with climate change. The proposed research program will utilise the unique physical setting of the Hauraki Gulf to provide an analytical, physiological and ecological investigation into the climatic drivers of sedimentation in the coastal environment, the effects of sedimentation on the ecological function and resilience of kelp forests, and how these effects will interact with other climate-related factors. Coupled with long-term biological and water quality monitoring programs this research will provide a predictive framework to inform local and global resource managers in developing ecosystem based strategies aimed at promoting healthy and more resilient marine ecosystems.

Public Summary: Enzymes are the molecular workhorses of life. They catalyse almost all of the biochemical reactions that constitute a cell’s metabolism. Biochemistry textbooks emphasize the high activities and exquisite specificities of enzymes. However, these properties also suggest a lack of versatility, in turn implying that enzymes are unlikely to evolve new functions. The textbook view is therefore at odds with the reality of evolution: new enzymes can evolve rapidly, as demonstrated by the emergence of microbes that degrade antibiotics and human-made pollutants. I am proposing a multi-faceted research programme that will address this apparent contradiction. We will use high-throughput tools from functional genomics and directed evolution, together with biochemistry and structural biology, to explore the evolutionary origins of enzyme functions and structures. We will characterize the latent, secondary activities of enzymes, as this ‘promiscuity’ is proposed to be critical for evolving new functions. In one case, we will build on work that we have published recently, and mimic the evolution of a previously uncharacterized determinant of antibiotic resistance. We will also explore the roles that enzyme promiscuity may play in shaping bacterial genomes. The ocean-dwelling bacterium, Pelagibacter ubique, has the smallest sequenced genome of any free-living microorganism. I hypothesize that its enzymes have evolved ‘backwards’, to be more promiscuous than their ancestors, and that the presence of multi-tasking enzymes has allowed P. ubique to minimize the size of its genome. We will test this hypothesis, by being the first researchers to study the properties of enzymes from this microorganism. Finally, we will use a novel experimental approach to explore the role that a previously overlooked process -- non-homologous recombination -- can play in the evolution of new protein structures. Together these experiments comprise a coherent programme of research, which will shed new light on longstanding questions in protein and genome evolution.

Public Summary: The last decade has seen a great expansion in the legal protection of privacy in England, New Zealand and the wider common law world. Change in England was ushered in by the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights right to 'respect for private life' into domestic law (via the Human Rights Act 1998). Holding themselves bound to develop common law consistently with Convention principles, courts protected 'private life' by extending the action for breach of confidence to include private (but not strictly confidential) information. Legislation such as the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 was also passed, enhancing privacy protection still further. Modern English privacy law is therefore a complex product of domestic legislation, common law, and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The book which is the subject of this proposal will analyse these different strands of jurisprudence and, for the first time, pull them together into a coherent theory of privacy law. The book will address four central questions: what is privacy, why is it worthy of protection, how is it currently protected in English law, and what further developments are needed to create a comprehensive, coherent private law privacy right? The book will combine both theoretical and doctrinal analyses and draw on a broad range of sources including scholarly work and case law from Europe, England, New Zealand and other Commonwealth and common law jurisdictions.

Public Summary: The potential for rapid deglaciation of West Antarctica remains a primary uncertainty in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions for 21st Century sea level rise. The recent and unpredicted collapse of multiple ice shelves and rapid acceleration of discharge of Antarctic ice suggests that dynamical responses to warming play a more significant role than is currently understood and captured in coupled climate-ice sheet models. Such models can be improved and validated by replicating known past changes. The Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) project is an international partnership seeking to understand past, present, and future changes of the Ross Ice Shelf, a major drainage pathway of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. About 5 to 3 million years ago, the last time when atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration and temperatures were similar to those predicted for the end of the 21st Century, the Ross Ice Shelf disintegrated multiple times, initiating the collapse of West Antarctica. However, no high resolution data exist from this time period. To determine the rate of change, RICE will provide an annually resolved ice core record for the past 20,000 years, when global temperatures increased by 6 deg C to preindustrial temperatures, global sea level rose by ~120 m, and the Ross Ice Shelf grounding line retreated over 1,000 km. Most of the Ross Ice Shelf retreat occurred when global sea level had already reached modern levels. For this reason, the precise correlation between increasing air and ocean temperatures, and the velocity and characteristics of the ice shelf retreat, will enable us to determine accurately the sensitivity of the Ross Ice Shelf to warming. Our results will significantly advance models to improve predictions of the future behaviour of the Ross Ice Shelf, and hence West Antarctica's contribution to sea level rise

Public Summary: Many organic molecules and polymers have an electronic structure similar to inorganic semiconductors like silicon. Semiconductors provide for the absorption of energy when electrons are energized to form electronic excited states. The electronic excited states of organic semiconductors can be exploited in technologies like solar cells, light-emitting diode displays, and lasers. Motivated by promise of abundant clean energy at low-cost, organic solar cells have achieved encouraging efficiencies of close to 8% to date - spurring chemists to develop new materials that strongly absorb sunlight and generate photocurrent. Yet understanding the physics of photocurrent generation sufficiently to guide the design of improved materials has proven to be a formidable challenge. The crux is that excited state energy is dissipated extremely quickly, meaning that key processes are hidden in timescales that require special tools to measure. This research program will develop and exploit advanced laser spectroscopy tools to address this problem. Sequences of extremely short laser pulses will be used to generate excited states in organic solar cells and probe the pathways through which energy is relayed between different parts of the cell. Amongst the technical challenges are i) the ability to see on an enormous range of timescales spanning seconds down to femtoseconds (millionths of billionths of seconds), and ii) the ability to identify short-lived excited states that are nearly invisible. The proposed research program uses a combination of extremely sensitive custom-made ultrafast optical absorption and emission spectroscopy techniques capable of tracking the fate of the absorbed photon energy. With the ability to see different types of short-lived excited states, this research program draws inspiration from natural photosynthesis to advance new design paradigms in artificially engineered solar energy conversion. This research program could provide a route to low-cost solar cells and will enhance our understanding of a range of other photoactive devices.

Public Summary: The human genome harbours evidence of long-term and repeated exposure to retroviral pathogens. Consequently, cells have developed an array of proteins as part of the innate immune response to recognise, prevent and contain infection by retroviruses. Termed restriction factors these proteins disrupt multiple stages of the retroviral lifecycle including reverse transcription, viral assembly, genome replication and viral release. Members of the tripartite motif (TRIM) protein family have been identified to have a crucial role in this vital cellular immune response to retroviral pathogens. The TRIM protein family is characterised by a conserved domain architecture, called the RBCC motif. While little is known about the processes and mechanism of retroviral restriction, the interactions made by this motif govern TRIM protein function and the ability of TRIM proteins to both recognise retroviral components within the cell and disrupt the retroviral lifecycle. These interactions include the formation of multimers and higher order assemblies, interactions with cellular machinery and the recognition of retroviral components. Structural biology has the ability to examine these interactions at atomic resolution allowing a detailed analysis of the mechanism and determinants of restriction. Investigation of this vital aspect of cellular immunity may lead to vital new opportunities to block, and clear retroviral infections including HIV, the causative agent of AIDS.