Ken McNatty

MSc (Hons), PhD, DSc, FRSNZ

Ken McNatty FRSNZ

Emeritus Professor Kenneth (Ken) Pattrick McNatty was born on 8 September, 1944 in Aotearoa New Zealand. He died on 9 April, 2023 walking the Via de la Plata Camino in Spain. The only comfort that can be taken from this was that his last days were spent doing something he loved. Ken was a world leader in the field of Reproductive Biology and was well known for his work on the ovary, particularly on factors controlling the development of ovarian follicles.  This included understanding the factors controlling the health of the follicle and how many follicles would ovulate.

Ken was awarded a Master of Science with First Class Honours in Chemistry at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington (VUW) in 1966. Following his Masters degree, he was employed as a scientist by the Department of Agriculture at the Wallaceville Animal Research Centre in Upper Hutt. From 1972 to 1975, Ken undertook PhD studies with Professor Roger Short on the maturation of the human ovarian follicle at the University of Edinburgh. After returning to NZ in 1975, he was then awarded the Harkness Fellowship in 1977 and left NZ shores again to develop methods to culture human eggs in vitro at Harvard Medical University. Shortly after, he was awarded the Boerhaave Chair in Reproductive Endocrinology at Leiden University Medical School in The Netherlands to further his study on human follicular endocrinology.

In 1981, Ken returned to the Wallaceville Animal Research Centre (MAFTech that later became AgResearch) to focus on understanding the growth and development of the ovarian follicles of domestic farm animals. A particular focus was on understanding why some sheep ovulate a single egg, whereas others will ovulate 2, 3 or more eggs. Understanding this was critically important as the number of eggs ovulated is the main driver of why some ewes have single lambs, whereas other have twins or triplets. This ground-breaking work led by Ken not only provided fundamental knowledge regarding the control of ovarian follicular development in mammals, but was also the foundation for the development of products to regulate the number of eggs ovulated for our pastoral industries. This included Androvax, a vaccine to increase lambing rate in sheep and Ovagen, used for inducing multiple ovulations in sheep and cattle for advanced breeding programmes. These products contributed over $100M revenue annually to the NZ economy for many years. He was well known for his work with sheep carrying the Booroola and Inverdale genes which he used as models to identify the crucial role that the oocyte and its secretions of transforming growth factor beta superfamily members had on follicular development and reproduction. These studies have provided the foundational knowledge on which modern animal breeding programmes and product development have been established to improve assisted reproductive technologies internationally.

In 2006, Ken returned to VUW as a Professor of Biotechnology. Here, he reignited his passion for understanding the human ovary and made new collaborations with the human fertility industry, and in particular New Zealand’s largest IVF clinic, Fertility Associates. His latest work was centred around what made a good egg (oocyte).

Over his career, Ken received numerous prestigious awards. These included the McMeeken Award for distinguished services to NZ agricultural research, the AgResearch Fellowship Award in 1996, Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society for Reproduction and Fertility (UK) and the Nancy Sirett Memorial Lecture award from the New Zealand Society of Endocrinology in 2004, the Pickering Medal from the Royal Society of NZ in 2009, the Shorland Medal from the NZ Association of Scientists in 2010, and the Pioneer award from the International Ruminant Symposium in 2014. Ken was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1992, won a James Cook Fellowship from the Royal Society of NZ in 2008 and was the NZ Representative of the Council of Scientists for the International Human Frontier Science Programme Organization. In 1993, VUW bestowed a Doctor of Science upon Ken which is the highest academic award a University can confer.

Over his career, Ken filed 10 patents, published nearly 300 journal articles, wrote one book and left scores of mentees forever in his debt. Ken was a highly collaborative scientist, with 288 co-authors from throughout New Zealand and the world. His last paper published in 2021 was a collaborative review article with two French colleagues. In many ways, this review was a reflection of much of Ken’s research career, focused on the ovary and spanning from ovarian development and follicle formation during fetal life, through follicular growth and atresia, steroidogenesis and oocyte maturation. It highlights a key insight that Ken was instrumental in developing, that the oocyte is a key organizer of ovarian function.

Ken was also a talented sportsman who felt at home in the great outdoors. He played tennis to the highest level nationally and was keenly interested in hiking and mountaineering. He climbed our highest peaks in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. One particularly noteworthy expedition that Ken lead in 1968 was to Cordillera Vilcabamba in Peru. This was well before GPS and Google maps and was basically uncharted territory. Ken led the team on 26 ascents, 18 of which were first ascents. Reminisces from Ken’s team members described his leadership as supportive and team-focused, a leadership style Ken maintained throughout his long scientific career. Ken took up running a little later in life and was an active member of the Trentham United Harrier club in Upper Hutt, New Zealand. He ran many marathons nationally and internationally, two of which were completed in under three hours.

During his international travels, as well as throughout his career, Ken developed lasting collaborations with scientists around the world, which was reflected in his many collaborative publications. Of particular note was his collaboration with career-long mentor, Hannah Peters, whom he met at an ovarian workshop in Glasgow in 1975. They wrote a book together titled “The Ovary” published in 1980. Ken made a point of visiting Hannah every few years, his last visit was when she was in her 90s, and they continued to discuss his latest research in the ovary throughout these visits. Ken identified Hannah as a key influence on his scientific career making him realise that he could undertake internationally important basic research while remaining based in New Zealand.

While his research team was very important to Ken, this was eclipsed by his devotion to his family, his wife Rosemary and her family, his children Alan, Dan, Matthew and Shannon and his many grandchildren and great grandchildren. It was this devotion to family, and his desire to explore other interests in his life, that lead him to retire from VUW in 2017, with his only remaining focus in science to support his mentees and contribute to a few unfinished publications.

Ken left science in a much better, and more knowledgeable, place than when he found it. He had a huge impact on fertility research and on NZ agriculture that has been recorded in our history. But perhaps most importantly, his legacy of ‘Just do good science and nothing can touch you’ will live on forever in his many mentees and colleagues around the world.

By Janet Pitman, Jenny Juengel and George Davis, July 2023