Kia ora koutou

Welcome to the final edition of Pulse for 2011.

The Division continues to celebrate the successes of its staff and students right up to the end of the year.

Warm congratulations to Professor Christine Winterbourn who was awarded New Zealand’s highest science and technology honour, the Rutherford Medal.This award recognises Professor Winterbourn as one of the founders of free radical research in biological systems.

Congratulations also to Dr Chris Pemberton who was awarded the Health Research Council’s Liley Medal, and to Professor Gerald Tannock who was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

I have enjoyed the end of year celebrations of our student successes at various prize-giving ceremonies and graduations.Thank you to the large numbers of staff who attended these events and celebrated the success of our students.

We have had a busy and productive year and I would like to thank all staff for their commitment and dedication to making 2011 a success for the Division and the University.

This year has been a particularly difficult year for our Christchurch campus and I would like to sincerely thank all staff in Christchurch for the extraordinary lengths you have gone to, and your noteworthy success this year in such trying circumstances.

I wish you all a relaxing and enjoyable time with family and friends during the festive season.

Best wishes for the Christmas and New Year period.

Peter Crampton

Professor Peter Crampton

Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Division of Health Sciences, pvc.healthsciences@otago.ac.nz

Dean, Faculty of Medicine,dean.medicine@otago.ac.nz

Congratulations to Professor Gerald Tannock who has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Prof Tannock is a world-leading authority on gastrointestinal microbes and their role in health and disease, who has pioneered the amalgamation of traditional methods with DNA-based technologies.

Otago Daily Times Article.
University of Otago Press Release.

• Liz Girvan from the Otago Centre for Electron Microscopy was awarded the 2011 Sir John Walsh Research Institute Research Support Award in recognition of her excellent assistance to researchers within the Faculty of Dentistry. This well deserved honour carries with it a $2000 contribution to a conference or workshop or other appropriate travel. "Liz is not only a superbly skilled electron microscopist, but has the patience to initiate our new staff and students into the wonderful world of Scanning Electron Microscopy" says Prof Jules Kieser, Director of the Institute.

• The Department of Anatomy has recently commissioned two new high-throughput DNA sequences; an Ion Torrent and a 5500xl, both from Life Technologies. These two machines enhance the Department's reputation as an early adopter of cutting-edge DNA sequencing technology. The Ion Torrent, which is the first to be bought in New Zealand, has an exciting future as the first of a new generation of semi-conductor sequencers.

• Congratulations to Research Fellow Mr John Dennison who has had three books published over the past twelve months. More information is available at here.

• Congratulations to BSc Hons student Mike Fleet and PhD student Yanfeng Zhang who recently won awards at the Otago Medical School Research Society Speaker Awards.

• Congratulations to postgraduate students Angela Clark, Mike Fleete and Abigail Moore who each won first prize awards at the University of Otago's Health Science Research Forum. The trio each took part in the Student Poster Competition which required them to present and and communicate their science research projects to a non-specialist audience.

• The Anatomy Mo-Bro's raised $5,301 for the Movember campaign. Special congratulations go to Brad Hurren and Matt Wafer who raised over $1,000 each and were ranked the top two students in New Zealand for money raised.

Congratulations to Associate Professor Russell Poulter who has received another Grand Challenges grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This grant is for his research into a way to get HIV infected cells out of dormancy so they can be attacked and killed by anti-retroviral drugs, which could lead to a cure for the disease.

Otago Daily Times Article.
University of Otago Press Release.

Congratulations to postgraduate students Sharleen Rae (Biochemistry) and Malinda Tantirigama (Physiology) who won a first prize award at the University of Otago’s Health Science Research Forum in October. Their poster was designed to demonstrate how both students' PhD projects fitted together as part of a wider collaboration between the Neural Development and Disease lab in Biochemistry, and the Empson lab in Physiology.

EXHIBITION
The Departments of General Practice and Rural Health and the Injury Prevention Research Unit at 55 Hanover St are delighted to host an exhibition of works by Sarah Joan Lawrie.
Sarah is completing her Masters of Fine Arts at the Dunedin School of Art, with this exhibition being a component of her Master's work.
The exhibition in the stairwell at 55 Hanover St can be viewed until February 16 2012.

Congratulations to Professor Gregory Cook who has had a bacterium named after him in recognition of his contribution to the microbiology and bioenergetics of extremophiles, amphibacillus cookii.

Otago Daily Times Article
Otago Bulletin, Issue 23

Grants awarded to Physiology

Congratulations to the following staff members who have been awarded external grant funding:

·Dr Ruth Empson and team who has been awarded a Lottery Health Research grant towards the purchase of a multiphoton microscope.

·Associate Professor Brian Hyland who has been awarded a two-year Neurological Foundation of New Zealand Project Grant.

·Dr Regis Lamberts and Dr Andrew Bahn who have been awarded a National Heart Foundation Small Project Grant in collaboration with members of staff at Dunedin Public Hospital.

·Dr Andrew Bahn who has been awarded an Otago Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) Laurenson grant with Dr Lisa Stamp.

·Dr Pete Jones and Dr Regis Lamberts who have been awarded an OMRF Laurenson grant.

Other Physiology Department successes

The Department would also like to congratulate the following staff and students on their recent successes:

·Jenny Clarkson (Postdoctoral Fellow supervised by Professor Allan Herbison) who has been awarded a Division of Health Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship for two years.

·Yeri Kim (BBiomedSc (Hons) student supervised by Dr Ruth Empson) who was awarded second prize at the Otago Medical School Research Society MSc/Honours Student Speaker Awards on 9 November.

·Linda McNeill (Secretary, HUBS) who has been awarded a Disability Information and Support Appreciation Award which recognises staff who offer exceptional support to the Disabilties Office and the students that they work with.

·Aleisha Moore (BBiomedSc (Hons) student supervised by Rebecca Campbell) who won the Student Speaker Award at the Reproduction and Development Research Symposium on 18 November.

Malinda Tantirigama (PhD student supervised by Dr Ruth Empson) who was awarded a poster prize at the Health Sciences Divisional Research Forum held on 18 October at the Art Gallery.

Congratulations to Lynne Clay, one of our PhD students who has just successfully completed the Everest Marathon. Her run has raised funds for MSOtago and a local Nepalese charity.
Read here for more information about the race.

Awards Celebration

Friday the 18th of November saw staff, students, and other visitors attend the annual Awards Celebration at the University of Otago Wellington.

Our guest speaker this year was the new Chief Executive Officer of Capital and Coast DHB; Mary Bonner, Professor Harlene Hayne and Professor Peter Crampton from Dunedin also attended.

It was the opportunity to publicly celebrate all of our students’ achievements with a total of 46 awards. The awards went to the 4th, 5th and graduating Trainee Intern medical students, as well as the Radiation Therapy and postgraduate students.

Staff were also recognised for their achievements at the Awards Celebration. This included the 7 PhD’s awarded this year. Both Mark Weatherall and Sarah Romans were promoted to Professor. Dawn Elder, Simon Hales, Sue Pullon and Andrew Harrison were all promoted to Associate Professor.

Dr Swee Tan, Adjunct Professor Surgery, was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to science earlier this year.

The Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Health Sciences) invites expressions of interest for the part-time, fixed-term position of Associate Dean (Postgraduate Studies).

The successful candidate will work with the Pro-Vice-Chancellor to lead changes in the Division of Health Sciences postgraduate environment in conjunction with the Director, Policy and Programmes.

This is a transition leadership role to assist with the promotion and implementation of the recommendations of the Postgraduate Review Working Party across the Division of Health Sciences.The Associate Dean (Postgraduate Studies) will also ensure that the functions and responsibilities of the Health Sciences suite of postgraduate programmes continue to be undertaken to a high level during this transition phase.

The time commitment anticipated is 0.3 FTE for a two-year term.

Please feel free to contact Peter Crampton or Andrea Howard if you would like more information.

Please send your expression of interest to the Director, Policy & Programmes, Division of Health, University of Otago, Dunedin [Telephone (03) 4797010, Fax (03) 4795058, email andrea.howard@otago.ac.nz]. A job description can be provided on request.

The closing date for expressions of interest is Wednesday 25th January 2012.

A formal selection process will take place during February.

All new staff in the Division have been invited to complete an Evidence Portfolio before Christmas and will receive feedback and mentoring. Health Sciences Office staff will provide feedback and mentoring to anyone who requires it- the sooner the better. The Division’s help pages can be found at: http://hs-pbrf-docs.otago.ac.nz. For information or advice contact michele.coleman@otago.ac.nz or kerry.galvin@otago.ac.nz.

A group of doctor musicians want to gauge levels of interest in playing in a New Zealand Doctors Orchestra (NZDO). A Christchurch Doctors Orchestra has played at an annual concert for the last 20 years, and the players have enjoyed the opportunity to dust off their instruments and take part in some active work-life balance. Australia, and more latterly Europe, have a doctors' orchestra.

The NZDO welcomes medical students as well as medical practitioners.

The proposed format for the NZDO would be to gather for a long weekend of rehearsals and give a concert on the Sunday afternoon, with proceeds going to a charity. Please register your interest at www.nzdo.org.nz.

The Divisional Office in, conjunction with Research & Enterprise, ran two workshops in 2011 on how to obtain funding from international sources.The first covered charitable foundations in the US and the second focussed specifically on NIH.

Both workshops featured local investigators who have been successful in attracting overseas funding discussing their strategies.

We plan to continue this series in 2012, featuring European and Asian funding opportunities and will repeat the first workshop for a wider audience.

The NIH workshop is available for viewing as a podcast- please email michele.coleman@otago.ac.nz.

The Library is also working on another research service that will see the development of a Research Output Aggregator (ROA). Using their username, a staff member will be able to generate their own h-index for particular databases, as well as ‘visualising’ their bibliometrics and the research output data that is behind the index. First databases to be indexed by the ROA will be Web of Science and Scopus; it is hoped that others, in particular Google Scholar, can also be added in the near future.

The University of Otago has subscribed to this service to find international research funding opportunities.

What is COS?
- worldwide web-based database for research funding opportunities and research expertise, making it useful for funding, developing collaborations and seeking expertise
- all disciplines, funders across the board: governments, public agencies, private foundations and trusts
- funding for various purposes: research expenses, travel, collaborations, fellowships, postdoctoral fellowships, equipment
- UO subscribes to COS, and it is available to all staff. UO has had success at obtaining funding from these non-traditional funds.
Access to COS database:
1. From any on-campus computer, go to http://fundingopps.cos.com or http://expertise.cos.com and you can start searching right away.
2. Alternatively, go to http://www.cos.com and create a user name and password for off-campus access, as well as on-campus. This will allow you to save your search criteria and organise the portal to email you updates based on your criteria.

COS improvements:
Currently, COS relies on users to keep their profile and search criterion up to date themselves, giving users control over their profiles. However, from early 2012, COS will be migrating all Profiles it has, into a more useful database, called Pivot. Pivot will take the migrated profiles and build them from validated sources (eg Scholar Universe). People will have less control over their profiles, as the reliance will be on validated information. We (UO Research Office) is still waiting to hear back from COS about the extent of users’ editing ability of their own profile in Pivot.
Pivot will also tailor funding opportunities more accurately to match the profile.
**We recommend that UO researchers start their own profile on COS before 31 December 2011, to ensure information you want on the database moves to Pivot during the migration period.**

Assistance:
Janet Kerr from the Research and Enterprise office will be available to departments to provide assistance with getting started on this database.

ERA@Otago is an advisory group to the DVC Research and University Research Committee.Part of their role is to ensure that the University is aware of the ICT challenges that research presents and to ensure that Otago is well positioned to use national ICT infrastructure to the best advantage of our researchers. A core strategy of ERA is to connect with and contribute to national initiatives designed to support the development of eResearch capabilities across three broad areas: computation (e.g., high-performance computing), data storage and sharing (e.g., cross-institutional distributed storage systems), and collaboration (e.g., video-conferencing, virtual research environments).

The developing workstreams of ERA @Otago can be viewed here http://eresearch.wiki.otago.ac.nz/Main_Page and your feedback is welcomed.

Thank you for all your contributions for 2011. I look forward to receiving 2012 news.

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Best wishes for a safe and enjoyable holiday season with family and friends.