Fighting Cancer Our Research Revolution
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THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND ALUMNI MAGAZINE AUTUMN 2019 FIGHTING CANCER OUR RESEARCH REVOLUTION Essential entrepreneurs Random acts of kindness Taking Issue University innovators Can we keep Social media in boosting the economy them up? a democracy BIG PICTURE BOLD AS BRASS Second Line brass band, the Auckland City Scoundrels, shared their energetic musicianship on the City Campus during Graduation Week. Photo: Godfrey Boehnke this issue REGULARS 7 27 Fighting cancer: Distinguished Alumni 6 research revolution Award winners Editorial Some of the country’s top cancer research The diverse recipients honoured is taking place at the University of in 2019 answer questions about Auckland, so are we winning the fight? their lives. Guest13 columnist Finlay Macdonald 18 21 28 Taking Issue Dame Helen Winkelmann: Elizabeth Iorns: Chief Justice for all fearless entrepreneur 20 Picking up the legacy of Dame Sian Elias, Former cancer researcher, Elizabeth Iorns, News Dame Helen Winkelmann describes how is now facilitating others’ research through the legal profession needs to change. her successful start-up Science Exchange. Research29 31 24 30 From the archives Simon Talbot: Good deed out on a limb with wine Distinguished Alumnus and reconstructive Raising the Bar features 20 thought leaders, Around32 the globe surgeon, Dr Simon Talbot, talks about his speaking in ten bars around Auckland, work saving life and limb. including wine scientist Rebecca Deed. Alumni34 networks 7 36tips for … boosting creativity 38Books 4 | Ingenio magazine Design:23 Deb Polson Art:37 Finn McCahon-Jones 14 Shape of things to come Olaf Diegel’s additive manufacturing skills reflect the type of innovation New Zealand needs. ingenio.auckland.ac.nz | 5 Ingenio Editorial The University of Auckland Alumni and Friends magazine Autumn 2019 ISSN 1176-211X Editor Denise Montgomery TO LIVE Contributing editor Helen Borne AND Art design Mike Crozier, Ashley Marshall LEARN Special acknowledgement Judy Wilford Feature photos Dean Carruthers he terrorist attack against Muslim people, one that we are lucky to be part of and Gottfried Boehnke communities in Christchurch on can be proud of. Ingenio editorial contacts 15 March has had a significant impact It is in the nature of these events that we Ton the people of New Zealand, including must sooner or later return to our daily lives, Communications and Marketing, students, staff and alumni of this University. but we must also ask how we can prevent such The University of Auckland All of us will recall well our initial shock on tragedies occurring again. The reality is that we Private Bag 92019, learning that people had been attacked as they cannot avoid having a small number of people Auckland 1142, New Zealand. exercised their right of freedom to worship. in our society who are, for whatever reason, Level 3, Alfred Nathan House Then came the utter horror, as the scale of this inclined to evil. But we can deprive them of the 24 Princes Street, Auckland. tragedy gradually became evident. opportunity to again create this kind of horror. Telephone: +64 9 923 6061 The staff and students of the University For that reason, I believe we should all applaud Email: [email protected] reacted quickly to this event, keeping all our the steps the government has taken to address Web: auckland.ac.nz/ingenio people well informed, ensuring that those most the inadequacies in our gun laws. How alumni keep in touch To continue to receive Ingenio vulnerable in our community felt as safe and Perhaps more directly, we can all work and subscribe to @auckland, protected as possible, and providing those most together to create an environment in which the University’s email newsletter deeply affected with appropriate support as they the kinds of behaviours that incubate these for alumni and friends, enter dealt with their bewilderment and grief. tragedies are utterly unacceptable. It is up to your details at: alumni. Later came a major organisational effort all of us, while safeguarding the rights of free auckland.ac.nz/update to support the Jumu’ah prayers the following speech that are fundamental to a university Alumni Relations Office Friday, supported by a vigil involving more than and to a democracy, to ensure that we also The University of Auckland 19A Princes Street, 1,000 staff and students, the formal He Karakia actively protect the freedom and wellbeing of all Private Bag 92019 Whakāwatea (service of remembrance) a week members of our society. Auckland 1142, New Zealand later and a vast array of other responses that As an institution that is itself diverse, with Telephone: +64 9 923 4653 sprung up spontaneously across the University. thousands of students and staff from more Email: [email protected] I think all members of our community, but than 120 countries, a great many international Web: alumni.auckland.ac.nz particularly those most directly affected, have relationships and alumni living in 100 countries Disclaimer Articles may reflect personal been touched by the warmth, compassion and across the globe, the University of Auckland is opinion that is not that of the care for each other demonstrated by many particularly well positioned to do just that. University of Auckland. colleagues around our campuses. The one good thing that will come out of Audited by abc.org.nz That willingness to just get on and do the this tragedy is all of us dedicating ourselves Copyright right thing reminds us that while the University to a much more active engagement with, and No parts of this publication is a large, complex and diverse organisation, it is support of, our fellow human beings in all their may be reproduced without also, at its heart, an incredible group of decent glorious diversity. prior consent of the University of Auckland. All rights reserved. © The University of Auckland 2019 STUART McCUTCHEON Vice-Chancellor Cover story RESEARCH REVOLUTION By Geraldine Johns In the past decade, cancer research undertaken at the University of Auckland has changed lives. Our top scientists say it has now entered the next frontier and there’s hope that cancer could eventually be brought under control. ingenio.auckland.ac.nz | 7 n Waterloo Quadrant sits the High outside. Inside that space are filters, such as those Court. Today, as in most weekdays, seen in operating theatres, that clean the air so some trials of great significance there are no infectious particles. This guarantees are under way. Just across the sterility, and enables cells to be grown safely for Oroad, more trials are taking place. Here at the use in the clinic, says Rod. The lab is almost Thomas Building is a research centre focused on ready to produce T-cells for patient treatment, immune therapy – one of the most significant with the first clinical trial planned for 2020. cancer treatment developments in the past “We take a sample of a patient’s blood and we decade – which Professor Rod Dunbar drives. stimulate it in ways that grow the cancer-killing Rod is the director of the Maurice Wilkins T-cells. Because they have been confined inside Centre, a position he’s held for almost ten years, that sterile environment, we will be able to inject co-ordinating research across New Zealand in them safely back into the patient.” human therapeutics. In other words: custom-making cells to target After completing a medical degree and a an individual cancer patient’s tumour. PhD, Rod spent six years as a post-doctoral That wouldn’t be possible in a lab other than research fellow in human immunology at the one of this type, which uses an internationally University of Oxford before returning to New recognised quality-control system that ensures Zealand in 2002. He has specialised in immune therapeutic products are produced consistently therapy since his Oxford days. and safely. Rod spoke to Ingenio ten years ago about his work in immune therapy: identifying and purifying the particular T-cells in the blood that have the capacity to recognise and kill cancer cells. Those cells, once stimulated and fed with “Even patients with the most dreadful the right nutrients, can keep dividing to produce an army of identical cells, all with the same disease, a modest percentage are now capacity to attack and kill cancer cells while leaving normal cells alone. surviving for very long periods after Back then, Rod described immune therapy as “the next frontier” in cancer treatment. immune therapy. It gives us hope.” Now, he says, it’s the “big revolution” in cancer – Professor Rod Dunbar care. As an example, he cites his work with Dame Margaret Brimble – another Maurice Wilkins Centre principal investigator. Together, And nor would the unit be functioning were it they have developed innovative chemical not for the efforts of one particular philanthropist, technology to generate cancer vaccines. As who chose anonymity but whose largesse enabled reported in Ingenio Autumn 2018, this work is the development of the cell therapy unit’s being translated for clinical use by the spin- processes and protocols. out company SapVax, which is developing “The scale of philanthropy that New a pipeline of products for the treatment of Zealanders are now contributing to the University different cancers. is incredible,” says Rod. “As researchers, we are so To illustrate the work to date, we tour Rod’s grateful – these gifts make an enormous difference research facility. First up, there’s a new arrival in lifting our ambitions and enabling us to reach to view: a machine used to analyse different for goals that would simply be unachievable cells within tissues, including cancer tissues. The through our public science funding.” significance of its arrival is marked in the fact So how does the kind of cell therapy Rod’s Rod’s colleague, Dr Anna Brooks, who leads the team is developing relate to the ongoing Auckland Cytometry facility, knows the exact immune therapy “revolution”? date of its arrival: “7 January”, she enthuses.