Three National Science Awards This Week

Microbes and Molecules 2002 Conference
Physiology, Health and the Environment

University of Canterbury, Christchurch.
26-29 November 2002

Media Release
26 November 2002

Three National Science Awards This Week

MICROBIOLOGY SOCIETY AWARD 2002

The recipient of this award is: Dr Diana Martin, FRSNZ

Dr Martin is a Principal Scientist - Communicable Disease at the Kenepuru Science Centre, Porirua. (diana.martin@esr.cri.nz

Dr Martin is a scientist with has 26 years experience in Public Health Microbiology. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. She is internationally recognised in Streptococcal Disease epidemiology and laboratory diagnosis and is an Advisor to the World Health Organisation in the area of laboratory diagnosis of streptococcal diseases.

Dr Martin is actively involved in the surveillance and control of meningococcal disease in New Zealand and is a scientific advisor to the Ministry of Health on laboratory aspects relating to meningococcal disease and to The Meningitis Foundation of New Zealand.

Dr Martin has 76 publications in peer-reviewed international scientific journals and has contributed to books on the laboratory diagnosis of streptococcus. Her work will be acknowledged this week by the New Zealand Microbiological Society, when she receives the Award for Outstanding contributions to Microbiology.

OUTSTANDING PHYSIOLOGIST AWARD

The recipient of the 2002 Award is Dr Andrew Allan

Dr Allen is from HortResearch, Mt Albert, Auckland. For the past ten years, Dr Allen's research has focussed on plant responses to stress. His major achievements include the development of real time measurements of the plant cell’s oxidative burst during pathogen attack using confocal microscopy, a method which could then be applied to the study of early events in viral attack and environmental stress. There is now a new emphasis of gene discovery in Dr Allan’s professional work and this continues to follow his interest in the cell physiology of plant signal pathways, from perception to response.

The New Zealand Society of Plant Physiologists’ Outstanding Physiologist Award for 2002 was open to NZSPP members who have been employed in science for no more than ten cumulative years since the year of submission of their doctoral thesis. The Award is made on the merit of original research in one area, the findings of which have been published, or accepted for publication, in the five years preceding the year of the Award.

APPLIED BIOSCIENCES / NZ SOCIETY OF BOPCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY AWARD

The recipient for 2002 is Dr Sue Galloway

Dr Galloway is a Scientist at AgResearch Molecular Biology Unit, Univ of Otago, Mosgiel

Sue Galloway gained a PhD in biochemistry at Otago University in 1996. She then worked as a post-doctoral fellow for three years in the USA studying bacterial toxins that affect humans, firstly at University of Wisconsin, and then at Merck Sharp and Dohme in New Jersey. She returned to New Zealand in 1989, and since 1993 has been responsible for developing a genetic linkage map of the sheep X chromosome and searching for the Inverdale gene in sheep. The mutation responsible for the infertility and twinning phenotypes in these animals was announced in 2000. She is currently involved in identifying further genes responsible for reproduction in sheep variants and also in developing SNPs for comparative gene mapping and new gene discovery. Sue has a strong interest in communicating science to the community, and thinks it is important for people to have access to knowledge about scientific discoveries. To this end she is proactive in helping the advancement of science and gene technologies by interactions with school groups, teachers, community groups, farmers and visitors to the AgResearch MBU.

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