The OMSRS Masters and Honours Student Speaker awards, and Annual General Meeting will be held on 4th November 2020 at 5pm in the Barnett Lecture Theatre.

10 speakers have been selected from a range of departments. A prize of $500 will be awarded for the best presentation, and a prize of $250 will be awarded to the runner up.

We will also hold a brief Annual General Meeting during the break, and announce the winner and runners up of our annual Science Writing Prize, sponsored by Kainic Medical Communications.

Approximate timings are given below.

Departmental seminar series continues with Dr Xochitl Morgan from Microbiology & Immunology. Her seminar is entitled ‘Understanding ecosystem dysfunction in inflammatory bowel disease’.

Please see attached for more information: Morgan_poster

You are warmly invited to attend MapNet 2020, a free online conference across three ~90 minute sessions on Monday 16 and Tuesday 17 November 2020. The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Mātauranga and Te Ao Māori to guide genetics research: better outcomes for people and for science’.

As you know, the MapNet conference has historically been a meeting place for the applied genetics community in Aotearoa, with a particular focus on gene mapping in commercial species. However, in recent years both the community and the research has expanded significantly, with talks at last year’s conference covering human and health genomics, primary sector genomics, ecological and evolutionary genomics, microbial genomics and Māori kaupapa / Te Ao Māori in genetics teaching and research. This year, in an online format, we have decided to focus on the theme of “Mātauranga and Te Ao Māori to guide genetics research: better outcomes for people and for science” as a common thread that links all aspects of applied genetics in Aotearoa.

Ngā mihi nui – a huge thanks to the amazing speakers who have kindly agreed to share their tohungatanga – expertise. We are particularly thrilled to start the conference with a plenary presentation from Prof Alex Brown, an internationally leading Aboriginal clinician/researcher who has worked his entire career in Aboriginal health. We are also honoured to have Dr Kimiora Henare, Dr Phil Wilcox, Dr Jonni Koia and Assoc Prof Maui Hudson presenting during the conference.

Please see below for our schedule, you are most welcome to join us for any or all sessions!

Please register for the event here: https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/mapnet-2020-matauranga-and-te-ao-maori-to-guide-better-genetics-research-tickets-126764131931

Closer to the time, we will be in touch with registered attendees with details of how to attend each session via zoom.

Noho ora mai,

MapNet 2020 organising committee: Anna Santure, Annabel Whibley, Thomas Buckley, Libby Liggins, Jibran Tahir and Phil Wilcox

Monday 16 November: Indigenous health genomics and Māori kaupapa/Te Ao Māori in human health genomics

11:30-11:40am: Welcome

11:40am-12:20pm: Plenary from Prof Alex Brown, South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and University of Adelaide (https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/alex.brown)

12:20-12:40pm: questions and discussion

-break-

2:00-2:30pm: Dr Kimiora Henare (https://unidirectory.auckland.ac.nz/profile/k-henare)

2:30-3:00pm: Dr Phil Wilcox (https://scholar.google.co.nz/citations?user=v5W0yNUAAAAJ&hl=en)

3:00-3:20pm: joint questions and discussion

Tuesday 17 November: Māori kaupapa/Te Ao Māori in genetics research

2:00-2:30pm: Dr Jonni Koia (https://www.waikato.ac.nz/staff-profiles/people/jkoia)

2:30-3:00pm: Assoc Prof Maui Hudson (https://www.waikato.ac.nz/fmis/about/staff/maui)

3:00-3:20pm: joint questions and discussion

3:20-3:30pm: closing

We have special seminar on Monday 11 am by Dr Veronika Sander, from the University of Auckland titled “Using human kidney organoids to study acute kidney injury”.

Location is the D’ Ath Hercus building.

Seminar Poster

The Health Sciences’ Divisional Research Committee is holding a presentation where we will discuss proposal format (EoI and Full), application faults and what the panel is looking for.

Current grant holders will also be present to share their experiences.

Zoom details: https://otago.zoom.us/j/99339176722?pwd=aEFqelp6VzBMT2ZlWEFmR08xczNjQT09, Password: 872997

Dr Nathan Kenny, Oxford Brookes University:

The freshwater sponge Ephydatia muelleri: a new tool for tracing genome evolution across the animal tree of life.

Genomes of non-bilaterians are vital for understanding the evolution of animal multicellularity and the origin of the first metazoan-specific cell types. However, within the non-bilaterian metazoans, such as sponges, ctenophores and cnidarians, only a handful of genomes have been sequenced, and most are too fragmented to allow firm inference of the genomic characters of the earliest animals. To address this longstanding problem, we sequenced and analyzed the 326 Mb genome of the freshwater sponge Ephydatia muelleri to high contiguity, capturing its 23 chromosomes on 24 scaffolds.

E. Mueller has a metazoan-typical genome architecture, highly shared synteny with chordates, and representative levels of DNA methylation. E. Mueller is also a widespread, highly practical model system. Its well-assembled genome and ready utility as a model allows testing of hypotheses about gene duplication and adaptation to novel conditions, as well as providing a firm anchor for exploring the genomic evolution of animal life.

Dr Alana Alexander, Department of Anatomy, University of Otago

Linking past to future: using genomics to ‘time-travel’

Molecular approaches are useful for inferring how populations have responded to selective pressures and past environmental change. My research utilises the “time-traveling” ability of genomics, advanced computational tools, and behavioural, ecological, and biogeographic data to make inferences about the processes influencing genetic diversity within and among populations. These inferences range from global spatial and deep temporal scales (e.g. selection and the worldwide impact of climate fluctuations on global sperm whale populations over the last 125,000 years), to regional spatial scales across recent time scales (e.g. processes influencing the movement of genes and individuals across hybrid zones over the last few decades).

As a Māori scientist, I also maintain a strong interest in ensuring that my research can be used to support kaitiakitanga and rangatiratanga of resources within the rohe of iwi and hapū.

Dr Kiel Hards, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, University of Otago

Understanding synergy, mutualism and redundancy in microbial metabolism

From enzymes to ecosystems, biology exhibits cooperative behaviours at all levels. Whether it is enzyme cooperativity or plant pollination, the biological responses of multiple factors tend to be greater than the sum of their isolated components. However, reductionist approaches to bacterial physiology tend to overlook the intra- and inter-organism relationships of metabolic pathways, leading to unexpected outcomes in vivo or in situ. Increased understanding of these phenomena are required for diverse research outcomes, ranging from improved rationale design of antibiotics to enhanced understanding of global gas cycles.

In this seminar, I will cover three recent projects where I am reconstructing the molecular interactions of microbial metabolic pathways at various levels:

• Interspecies electron transfer and its role in supporting pathogen-commensal interactions
• Functional redundancy in terminal oxygen reduction and the need for dual inhibition in Tuberculosis therapies
• Mixotrophy in thermoacidophilic methanotrophs and why extremophiles retain metabolic flexibility

Dr Louise Bicknell, Department of Pathology, University of Otago

Genetic insights into human brain and body development

We are interested in how genetic variation in our genomes influences our development and lifetime health, with a particular focus on rare Mendelian disorders of brain and body growth. We use exome and genome sequencing of NZ and overseas patients as a starting point to identify and characterise candidate disease-causing variants using a variety of molecular biology techniques. Our studied conditions are “one-in-million”, so we rely heavily on international collaborations to strengthen our genetic evidence.

In this seminar I will give an overview of the different research projects we are undertaking, linking together the clinical, genetic and molecular knowledge we have gained from our study of human genetic syndromes. Particular emphasis will be on our long-term study on Meier-Gorlin syndrome and DNA replication, and our more recent research into NZ families with microcephaly (reduced brain size), where we have discovered novel disease genes such as a splicing component, and histones.