Thursday 7 September 2006
Otago Researchers Gain Major Marsden Funding
University of Otago researchers have gained nearly $11 million to undertake ideas-driven research in the Government’s
latest Marsden funding round announced today.
The 18 Otago projects funded out of the highly-competitive fund range from research into male brain development,
Melanesian pre-history, how honey bee queens use chemicals to control their subjects; through to lasers which work as
“optical tweezers” for microscopic particles.
Other innovative projects include investigating mechanisms behind sleep-related lowering in blood supply, which is a
factor in strokes, the neuroscience behind how brains make choices and a new model of evolution and animal development.
Research Deputy-Vice-Chancellor Geoff White warmly congratulated the successful applicants who came from across the
University’s Health Sciences, Humanities and Sciences Divisions.
“This is an outstanding outcome – it’s a real tribute to both their high calibre as researchers and the effort that went
into putting together their top-notch applications,” says Prof White.
“Our researchers’ stellar performance backs up Otago’s recent ranking as New Zealand’s most research-intensive
university and shows our continuing emphasis on fostering a strong research culture among staff is bearing fruit.”
This year, Otago received the highest number of research contracts awarded to any institution, in what is an
increasingly highly-competitive funding round, he says.
Prof White noted that only about six per cent of the initial applications around the country were ultimately successful.
The Otago projects are:
Professor Wickliffe Abraham (Psychology), Dr Joanna Williams (Anatomy & Structural Biology)
Seeing change: Synaptic plasticity in the visual system
$940,000 over three years
Dr Phil Ainslie (Physiology)
Circadian rhythm, cerebral blood flow and nitric oxide
$140,000 over two years (Fast-Start Grant)
Assoc Prof David Bilkey (Psychology)
The neuroeconomics of choice behaviour CMP
$725,000 over three years
Dr Mik Black (Biochemistry)
Bayesian Models for personalized medicine
$140,000 over two years (Fast-Start Grant)
Dr Warwick Bowen (Physics)
Quantum enhanced particle position measurement with optical tweezers
$140,000 over two years (Fast-Start Grant)
Dr Peter Dearden (Biochemistry)
The Evolution of Animals: A new model system for animal developmental genetics $780,000 over three years
Assoc Prof Keith Gordon (Chemistry)
Understanding charge-carrier flow in electroluminescent materials
$565,000 over three years
Professor Alison Mercer, Dr Kyle Beggs (Zoology)
Controlling your offspring with chemicals: revealing the secrets of honey bee queens
$780,000 over three years
Assoc Prof Ian McLennan (Anatomy & Structural Biology)
Does MIS drive boys towards manhood?
$825,000 over three years
Dr Jing-Bao Nie (Bioethics Centre)
Predicaments of social engineering: The ideology and ethics of China's planned reproduction program
$534,000 over three years
Professor Stephen Robertson (Women’s & Children’s Health)
Lessons from rarities: the role of filamins in human development
$859,000 over three years
Dr Bernhard Schmitt (Physiology)
Electrophysiology with electroneutral membrane transporters
$640,000 over three years
Professor Glenn Summerhayes (Anthropology)
Head in the clouds - The Archaeology of Kosipe. Understanding the dynamics and nature of the colonisation of Near
Oceania in the Late Pleistocene
$860,000 over three years.
Professor Gerald Tannock (Microbiology & Immunology)
Lactobacillus dialogues: the impact of cell signalling on gene expression and ecological behaviour of a gut commensal
$745,000 over three years
Dr Tim Thomas (Anthropology)
Island networks in Melanesia: the prehistory of Tetepare Island
$140,000 over two years (Fast-Start Grant)
Professor Evelyn Tribble (English)
The extended mind in early modern England
$455,000 over three years
Assoc Prof Graham Wallis (Zoology)
Finding speciation genes in New Zealand fishes
$825,000 over three years
Professor Christine Winterbourn, Assoc Prof Tony Kettle (Pathology, Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences)
Radical targets of superoxide toxicity
$825,000 over three years
Collaborative project with Massey University:
Assoc Prof Richard Cannon (Oral Sciences) is a co-Principal Investigator in Candida albicans: Survival without sex?
Co-Applicants: Dr Jan Schmid (Massey University) and Dr Barbara Holland (Massey University)
$770, 000 over three years
ENDS