Squishy Physics

Another New Zealander to get lucky from his hard work is PaulCallaghan at the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology. He's been bridging chemistry and physics, using radio waves in a magnetic field to see how molecules behave in fluids with both solid and liquid properties. The Royal Society fellow became the first person outside Europe to receive the Ampere Prize for this work.

The process uses the tiny atomic nucleus to 'spy' on the way molecules within fluids organise, orient and move when the fluids containing them are subjected to flow, or are dispersed within a porous material. Callaghan's achievements in the field of 'squishy physics' have led to advances in the use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), including new diffraction methods for studying the structure of fluids inside porous materials, along with new ways of analysing the motion of molecules over distances and times that hadn't previously been available.

Callaghan has followed the advice of an earlier mentor who told him, 'Don't worry about what the rest of the world is doing; do your own thing'. Now the rest of the world is interested in his achievements exploring the elasticity and viscosity of 'gooey' fluids. His findings are widely used in the science of materials, with implications for making stronger plastics, liquid crystals and detergents - and even making food products 'tastier'.

Callaghan's Magnetic Resonance of Materials group is now endeavouring to further the understanding of the dynamics in fluids that mimic rudimentary biological properties, known as 'wormlike micelles'.

Funding

Most research in New Zealand, like that at the MacDiarmid Institute, is largely funded by government with contributions from industry and the private sector, but it also attracts collaborative research and investment funding from abroad. The way the New Zealand government invests US$400 million each year in science and technology is of interest to other countries, according to Cordis News. With many EU states re-thinking the structure of their research systems, several European Union research ministers are visiting to see how New Zealand is 'punching way above its weight' in scientific research, quotes Cordis News.

"The OECD has declared the country's framework for allocating funding to research, science and technology to be one of the best in the world."

The MacDiarmid Institute is one of seven centres of research excellence which, along with eight universities, nine crown research institutes, seven industry-funded research associations and two non-government institutes, are transferring high-quality research into valuable commercial products. The continued focus on global linkages is seeing more international collaboration with other institutes, with New Zealand researchers now bidding for the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) research funding and positioning themselves for FP7.

High-temperature superconductors

Crown research institute Industrial Research Limited (IRL) is seizing opportunities following a 16-year battle to recognise patents for the only commercially-available material for hightemperature superconductors (HTS). While superconductivity - the ability to conduct electricity without resistance - was discovered in 1911, the first superconducting metal wire wasn't produced until the 1960s. However metallic superconductors had to be cooled with expensive helium gas as they could only operate at absolute zero or around -273 Celsius.

Details of a ceramic compound that would only have to be cooled by liquid nitrogen at -196 Celsius were sketched down over lunch by IRL's Dr Jeff Tallon in 1988, fulfilling a quest pursued by scientists all around the world.

HTS's ability to transmit five times the amount of electricity as the same sized copper wires will change the way electricity is enerated, delivered and used. The HTS industry is expected to reach its tipping point around 2007-2008 according to industry experts in Europe and the US. HTS-110, a HTS-focused business spun out from IRL, is working with the American Superconductor Corporation to transfer years of R&D into products for magnets, generators, medical equipment and imaging systems.

Software Dummies

Another area where New Zealand is making a significant international contribution is through the Physiome Project. The venture, building simulated human organs, will change the process of drug discovery. At present, researchers have to spend years experimenting on tissue and live organs before conducting multiple rounds of human trials. For every 10,000 compounds investigated, only one will result in a new drug. The softwaredummies devised by Auckland University's Bioengineering Research Institute (BRI), initially developed for hearts, can compute the effectiveness of the treatment as well as the sideeffects in a variety of different bodies. The virtual models, based on vast amounts of experimental data, link larger structures like the fluid dynamics of the heart, to smaller molecular structures such as cells, proteins and DNA.

BRI, focusing on heart, lung and skeletal models, is developing the mathematic models and ways to collect and share data with international colleagues at Oxford, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Washington and the University of California. The interactive organs, developed through international and inter-disciplinary collaboration, will make drug testing faster, cheaper and more effective.

Heart shrinking

A new drug to treat enlarged hearts suffered by people with diabetes has been discovered by New Zealand bio-pharmaceutical company Protemix Corporation. Currently more than 65% of people with diabetes die from heart disease or stroke - there are 194 million people worldwide with diabetes. It was assumed that heart muscle wouldn't regenerate, but Protemix has found that a six-month treatment with oral doses of Laszarin reduces heart size in diabetic patients with cardiac enlargement.

Laszarin, which removes excess copper from the body, is being fast-tracked through the FDA approval process with Phase III trials commencing shortly. Protemix's understanding of the underlying mechanisms of diabetes has attracted international attention, including interest from American venture capital funds. The treatment could improve heart function, with implications for the management not just of diabetes, but also high blood pressure and coronary heart disease.

Protemix was co-founded by Garth Cooper (left), who while at Oxford discovered the hormone amylin, and then developed the amylin replacement Symlin as a new therapy for diabetes, later founding Amylin (UK) Ltd and subsequently San Diego-based, multi-billion dollar biopharmaceutical company, Amylin Pharmaceuticals. Since he returned to New Zealand in 1992, he has written a further 20 patents.

Fetal Findings

Research at Auckland University's Liggins Institute is based on the concept that fetal experience affects a person's health throughout life. Multi-disciplinary teams at the institute have helped prove the theory that poor fetal development is a risk factor for some of the major diseases, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity. Investigators have recently found that very premature babies develop metabolic changes during childhood that are known precursors to so-called 'lifestyle' diseases in later life. For example, otherwise healthy children born at least eight weeks early were resistant to the hormone insulin in childhood - insulin resistance can lead to type 2 diabetes, elevated blood pressure and coronary heart disease.

The research of Liggins Institute director Professor Peter Gluckman, one of two paediatricians worldwide elected to the Royal Society and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, is challenging assumptions about evolution. He has been working with colleagues in the UK and US questioning the traditional view that evolution is genetic change that responds to a change of environment over many generations. In contrast, Gluckman and others believe that when individuals are tailored to the prevailing environment from around the time of fertilisation onwards, much faster responses are possible.

Gluckman argues that evolution has programmed humans and other animals to fit the environment that surrounds them during gestation - and that if there is a nutritional mismatch, certain diseases are more likely. The diseases that have been linked with impaired early development include obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome, osteoporosis and psychoses.

Gluckman and others at the Liggins Institute have been eveloping a head-cooling device which prevents brain damage in oxygen-deprived newborn babies. Brain injuries take hours or days to develop following oxygen deprivation, and cooling the brain during this time can protect against the cell death that results in permanent damage. The 'cool-cap' research provides the first evidence in humans that brain damage at birth could be treated.

One thousand 32-year olds

Meanwhile at the University of Otago one of the world's longestrunning assessment studies of 1000 babies born in New Zealand in 1972-73 is advancing understanding of gene-environment interactions. The research was voted the second most important breakthrough in 2003 in any area of science by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Last year researchers from the University of Otago, Kings College London and the University of Wisconsin found that a variation in a specific gene can be used to predict whether major life stress will lead people to develop clinical depression. Using data from the 30-year study period, researchers have also found a gene controlling an enzyme in the brain, which in combination with a history of childhood maltreatment, is an effective indicator of future antisocial behaviour in males.

More information on New Zealand science and innovationwww.marketnewzealand.com/science

Science on the edge

Niall Byrne Science in Public

Niall is a Melbourne-based science writer and communicator.

New Zealand may seem like the edge of the world, but-as the Lord of the Rings' director, Peter Jackson, and his dream weavers at Weta Digital Ltd demonstrated-distance need not be a barrier in the 21st century.

The challenge for New Zealand scientists is to determine where they can best make their mark. "We will always be the underdogs in fi elds such as medical biotechnology-an industry dominated by America but we have a head start in agricultural biotechnology," says Andrew Kelly (left), a New Zealand venture capitalist who is creating a NZ$100 million fund to kick-start commercialisation of the best New Zealand and Australian research in that field.

Take horticulture. New Zealand's horticulture exports have grown from just NZ$8 million in 1965 to NZ$2.2 billion in 2004. Almost half that growth is due to kiwifruit.

"The rise of the kiwifruit has been driven by good marketing backed by good science," says Paul McGilvary, CEO of HortResearch New Zealand. "We learnt how to grow, handle, and store the fruit so it gets to market in perfect condition. We created new varieties such as gold kiwifruit. Now we are exploring fruit genomics and working on varieties such as a bite size kiwifruit with an edible skin."

And their research is having unexpected impacts. Knowledge of insect pest pheromones has seeded a project to create biosensors to detect odours as diverse as spoiling food and explosives at airports.

And what about dairy products? New Zealand's dairy exports have tripled in value in the past fi fteen years. Farmers have learned to tweak almost every aspect of dairying, from growing the perfect pasture, to producing the cleanest milk-milk with low bacterial and cell counts. Now they are starting to harvest the rich cream of the bioactive compounds that make milk good for you.

North Island dairy company Tatua, for example, is harvesting and exporting a protein from milk that fights intestinal infections. This compound, lactoferrin, traps and withholds iron, an element essential for the growth and reproduction of pathogenic bacteria in the gut.

New Zealand's vast plantations of Californian Monterey Pine, Pinus radiata, are set to be the next research challenge. We need to broaden the horizon of what you can extract from a tree," says Bryce Heard, CEO of ForestResearch New Zealand. "We can use wood and wood composites to create new plastic-like biomaterials that could be used for everything from construction, to cars, even toys.

Talking with the neighbours

In their assault on biotechnology markets, the Kiwis are not planning to go it alone. The New Zealand government is investing heavily to encourage stronger links with its nearest neighbour, Australia.

"Together, Australia and New Zealand can be a major force in agricultural biotechnology," says Peter Lennox from New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.

Andrew Kelly agrees, "Both countries have been successfully adding value to agriculture with science for decades. We have unparalleled marketing networks supporting agricultural exports. It's only a small step further to use these networks for the new products of agricultural biotechnology."

"And there are many opportunities," he says. "In season, a deer's antlers grow by 2 cm every day. That's a remarkable growth process. What can we learn from it? What can we harvest? What can we patent?"

Desperately seeking capital

NEW ZEALAND's investment in science is just 1.15% of gross domestic product. And most of that is government funding. So Kiwi science entrepreneurs often struggle to fi nd the venture capital they need to grow. The answer, increasingly, is to go global, and the fi rst step is often a listing on the Australian Stock Exchange, the ASX.

Auckland company, Genesis, was one of the first to head overseas - listing on the ASX in September 2000. But its performance has been disappointing, according to David Blake, a Melbourne-based biotech analyst. "They've got a great technology base in genomics and immunology, but have struggled to excite the market."

Contrast that with Living Cell Technologies, a developer of cell lines derived from pigs, for the treatment of Huntington's disease, haemophilia and insulindependent diabetes. "This Auckland-based company had a very successful debut on the Australian Stock Exchange," says Blake.

"They've learnt how to build a global business. Their research base is still in New Zealand, but they've got a UK-based chairman, an Australian company offi ce, a US regulatory offi ce and an Italian research and trials centre," he says.

"Our operating costs in New Zealand are a half to a third of what they'd be in the US," says Roger Coats, Living Cell Technologies' Chief Operating Offi cer. "And we've found that the lifestyle is highly attractive to leading scientists." Perhaps it's for that reason that New Zealand gives value for money in research. In 2001, the country ranked fi rst for papers published per research dollar spent.