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INSTITUTE OF MOLECULAR BIOSCIENCES 20 ANNUAL REPORT 07 Te Kunenga Te ki Pūrehuroa www.massey.ac.nz 0800 MASSEY (627 739) Our Mission Statement Excellence in research and research-based teaching Kunenga ki Te Pūrehuroa Front cover: Mr Doug Hopcroft showing Rt Hon Helen Clark a weta egg on the Scanning Electron Microscope (Picture coutesy of David Wiltshire) 1 Contents Head of Institute’s Message 4 Academic Staff Arrivals and Departures 5 General Staff Arrivals and Departures 7 Publications 9 Journal Covers 15 Research Highlights 16 IMBSStaff and Students 18 Seminars 24 AnnualOpening of the MMIC 26 Conferences 28 ReportPostgraduates 30 Postgraduate Awards 33 2007Solexa Genome Analyser 34 Correspondence 34 Grants and Awards 35 Fellowships of the Royal Society of New Zealand 37 Kunenga ki Te Pūrehuroa Research Income for 2007 38 What is in the Wind for 2008 40 3 Head of Institute’s Message Barry Scott 2007 was a challenging year for the Institute as the pressure of government under- funding and increased competition within the Tertiary sector began to seriously impact on Massey University. It is thanks to the dedicated efforts of all staff within the Institute that we were able to maintain a high standard of teaching and research that has resulted in the many significant achievements we celebrate in this Annual Report. We commend Peter Lockhart and Paul Rainey on being elected Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand. Both have stunning international research records in the field of Evolutionary Biology and Genetics. The many other research achievements, including an impressive list of publications in top international journals, are highlighted in the following pages. The challenge ahead is to provide the research environment and resources necessary for others within the Institute to attain similar recognition in years to come. Unfortunately, we operate in an environment where thinking is predominantly short-term focused on non-hypothesis driven research. All attempts to lobby government to increase funding for the Marsden fund, which is a significant source of funding for basic research, seem to fall on deaf ears. Meanwhile, we need to think more outside the square and try to seize other opportunities, such as the recently announced Fast Forward Fund, as they arise. However this is an opportunity not for individuals but for organizations and so will require significant collaborations both within and between Institutions. Other significant achievements in 2007 were the award of a James Cook Fellowship to David Lambert and a Massey Medal (Supervisor) to Barry Scott. Establishing new and cutting edge technologies was another highlight for IMBS in 2007. In August the Prime Minister Rt Hon Helen Clark opened the Manawatu Microscopy and Imaging Centre (MMIC). The $1.6 m grant from the Innovation Development Fund of TEC enabled the Institute to single handedly set up a microscopy facility that will provide ‘state of the art’ microscopy and image analysis to all researchers in the Manawatu and beyond. In May the Minister of Science, Steve Maharey, opened the new AWC Solexa sequencing facility. The Solexa heralds a new age for DNA sequencing with output capacities unimaginable 5 years ago. The much talked about $1000 human genome is rapidly approaching. The biggest challenge will be providing the Informatics support required to deal with the terabytes of sequence output from this new technology. Already there is talk of the launch of third generation sequencing technology! These rapid changes in technology will provide a significant challenge to our teaching programmes, in particular the computational biology skills that are going to be required to analyse this high-throughput data. Te Kunenga ki Te Pūrehuroa At the end of 2007 Jeremy Hyams announced his decision to step down as Head of the Institute and return to Europe. We thank Jerry for his contributions to IMBS during his short tenure, particularly for the international research perspective he brought to IMBS. 4 Academic Staff Arrivals Paul Dijkwel Paul graduated from Utrecht University in the Netherlands and continued as a Post-Doctoral fellow at the John Innes Centre in the United Kingdom. He returned to the Netherlands to take up an assistant Professorship and is pleased to now have traded crowded Netherlands for windy Palmy. Paul’s main research interest involves the regulation of ageing in plants. Questions he would particularly like to see answered are: which signals cause old plants to behave differently from young plants, which proteins are involved in this process and how do they function? Austen Ganley Austen is a returning Massey graduate, having done his PhD in IMBS in the late 1990’s. After completing his PhD, he spent two and a half years as a Post-doc in the Department of Biology at Duke University (US), four years as a Post-doc in the National Institute of Basic Biology (Japan), and finally a year in the National Institute of Genetics (Japan) as an Assistant Professor. He is interested in the biology and evolution of the ribosomal DNA repeats. He uses both molecular and computational approaches to elucidate the various roles that the rDNA repeats play in cell biology, and to understand the molecular basis behind their unusual evolution. Rose Motion Rose is a Kiwi - she was a Massey student, before starting work at NZDRI (now Fonterra Research) on hydrolysates of milk proteins. She has also worked at Forest Research (now Scion) in Rotorua on active packaging and analysis of plant secondary metabolites. She spent Kunenga ki Te Pūrehuroa a couple of years selling and helping set up computer –interfaced analytical equipment (HPLC, LCMS, GCMS etc), so she has seen the equipment purchasing process from both sides of the fence (and learned a lot!). Her main scientific interests are in enzymology and proteomics but she has side interests in almost everything. Here in IMBS she helps with the teaching of the first year Biology of Cells and Biochemistry of Cells papers. 5 Wayne Patrick Wayne was an undergraduate at Otago, before beginning an eight-year overseas odyssey. He did his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, and his post-doctoral research was at Emory University (Atlanta, USA). He joined the academic staff on the Auckland campus in October 2007. His research interest is the biochemistry of evolution; that is, attempting to understand where new enzymes come from, and how their structures and functions change in response to selection pressure. Paul Rainey Paul Rainey is professor of evolutionary genetics at the NZ Institute for Advanced Study and Institute for Molecular BioScences at Massey University Auckland. He is also visiting professor at Stanford (where he is co-director of the Hopkins Microbial Diversity Programme), senior adjunct researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science & Technology, principal investigator at the Allan Wilson Centre for Molecular Ecology & Evolution, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of NZ. He completed his PhD at the University of Canterbury and in 1989 took up a post doctoral research fellowship at Cambridge University. In 1991 he moved to a government-funded research institute in Oxford. In 1994 he was awarded a BBSRC Advanced Research Fellowship, which he took to the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Oxford. In 1996 he was appointed to a faculty position at Oxford, a fellowship at St Cross College, and a stipendiary lectureship at Wadham. In 2003 he returned to New Zealand as Chair of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Auckland, but retained a fractional position at Oxford (until the end of 2005). In 2007 he moved his lab to Massey University’s Albany campus. His research is largely empirical (making frequent use of experimental microbial populations) and sits broadly in the field of evolutionary and ecological genetics. Evolutionary transitions and the origins of multicellularity are a growing fascination. Departures Cynthia Charron Cynthia joined IMBS in 2001 as a Biology of Cells and Biochemistry of Cells tutor, as well as the paper co-ordinator for the extramural Biology of Cells course. She was also very involved in the activities of IMBS, being the IMBS - school liaison officer as well as a member of the Social Committee. Cynthia’s husband was transferred to Christchurch, so she and young Macey moved down to the South Island to be with him. Te Kunenga ki Te Pūrehuroa Peter Farley After 10 years at Massey, Peter decided to change tack and pursue a career outside of science. He will spend a year studying in England before heading off to Asia to do ministry work. His ability to get on with the job and his quiet sense of humour will be sorely missed. 6 Jeremy Hyams Passionate, controversial, humorous, quick mind. These are characteristics found in all humans to varying degrees. But Jerry Hyams, Professor of Cell Biology and Head of the Institute of IMBS for the last 3 years, unquestionably possessed all of these traits in abundance and more. Jerry came to the Institute in September 2004 and immediately made his mark in wanting to take the Institute in a strongly research-focussed direction. He had definite views on how this should be achieved and where teaching fitted in to the overall programme. He was vigorous in pursuing these goals. Sadly for the Institute Jerry stepped down as HOI in March of this year and, with his wife Kay, returned to their beloved house in the south of France. We farewelled Jerry in April at a special function that he remembers with fond affection. The 3 years he was here now seem a bit of a blur, much like a whirlwind that came in and swirled things around furiously and you think “Did that really happen?”. He is a spirited man, who is not afraid to speak his mind.

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