This issue 2 Businessmen honoured 3 Online training 5 New professors University of Auckland news for staff | Vol 41 | Issue 1| 16 February NO STOPPING MELANOMA RESEARCHER When Stacey D’Mello was a five-year-old Linda D’Mello’s persistence undoubtedly by the University’s Disability Office with the growing up in Bombay (now Mumbai) in India, changed the course of her daughter’s life. Today provision of note-takers during lectures, the use she was diagnosed with Chlorodial Macular Stacey, 24, is in her first year of a PhD in of a photocopier; and special tests and exams Degeneration in both eyes and told she’d Molecular Medicine at the Faculty of Medical where she was allowed extra time and the use of eventually go blind. Twenty years on the young and Health Sciences and is one of four winners the disability room with special computers and scientist is at the forefront of University of doctoral scholarships awarded to University software and a moveable table. research into melanoma. researchers at the end of last year by the Now most of her days are spent in a “The Bombay optometrist told my mother not Auckland Medical Research Foundation. (In total laboratory in the Auckland Cancer Society to bother enrolling me in primary school but $1,760,795 was awarded to eight projects, two Research Centre (ACSRC) where “everything is instead put me in a school for special needs kids postdoctoral fellowships and four doctoral on the bench in front of me and close up”. Her and make sure I had financial provision for the scholarships across the Medical, Engineering doctoral study is looking at glutamate receptors future, ” says Stacey recalling her early and Science faculties.) in human melanoma. prognosis. “Rather than thinking I can’t do something, I “Glutamate is an amino acid used as a “But my mother [ Linda D’Mello, try and figure out how I’m going to do it,” says neuro-transmitter,” she explains. “It sends Administration Assistant at the Business School’s Stacey who has poor long-distance sight and signals from one nerve cell to another in the Graduate School of Enterprise] enrolled me in only partial sight in her right eye. This means she nervous system. A paper in Nature recently primary school anyway. During my first few will never drive a car, can’t see numbers on described a particular sub-unit of the glutamate years she would come in every day after work, buses, can’t see detail on people's faces like a receptors that was found to be mutated in 33 get some poor students to stay back after school smile unless they’re close up; and uses a special percent of melanomas. We’ve got access to cell and write down all the notes. I knew what laptop and software provided by the Royal lines established from tumours from New I’d heard. I just didn’t know what was on the Society for the Blind to zoom text up and down. Zealand melanoma patients so we’re trying to board. Classes in India are big with about 70 During her undergraduate years studying for a see what each patient’s melanoma cell is made to 75 kids.” BSc in Biological Sciences Stacey was supported of, and if these receptors are there. We’re also Continued on page 2 UNIVERSITY NEWS IS PUBLISHED BY Communications and Marketing, Fisher Building,18 Waterloo Quadrant, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142. EMAIL [email protected] www.auckland.ac.nz/universitynews EDITOR Tess Redgrave PHOTOGRAPHY Godfrey Boehnke DESIGN AND PRODUCTION The University of Auckland Honorary degrees for business leaders acknowledge his distinguished contribution to the planning and development of its physical environment as well as its intellectual capacities with the award of an honorary degree”. Owen G Glenn created a successful global business in freight forwarding and is recognised as an international leader in the logistics industry. He helped develop a new business model providing “full service” to customers at both points of origin and destination. His support for the University reflects his strong and enduring interest in higher education and his firm belief that the University has an important role to play in the economic and social development of New Zealand. To acknowledge his generosity in donating $7.5 million towards establishing a globally competitive and internationally recognised business school the University named the new Owen Glenn and Hugh Fletcher building opened in 2008 after him. The University has bestowed honorary 2008. His insights and business experience Mr Glenn has also financially supported a doctorates on two prominent New Zealand helped the University develop programmes and professorial chair in Marine Science, a PhD business figures, Hugh Fletcher and Owen G facilities needed to maintain its position as a scholarship in the Business School and a chair in Glenn ONZM. leading research-driven institution. He Molecular Cancer. Both received an honorary Doctor of Laws championed such ambitious initiatives as the He regularly visits the University and the degree in recognition of their major contributions new Business School, the Centre for Brain Business School, is a member of the Business to New Zealand and to the University’s well- Research, the expansion of the Grafton (Medical School’s Supporters’ Council and was on the being in recent years. and Health Sciences) Campus, and creation of Business School’s initial advisory board. The Chancellor, Roger France, bestowed the the Institute for Innovation in Biotechnology. The Vice-Chancellor said the University degrees at an early evening ceremony attended Mr Fletcher is a Trustee of The University of honoured Mr Glenn for being an entrepreneur in by 150 at the Maidment Theatre on 1 February. Auckland Foundation which manages and a spectacularly successful manner “but also for Hugh Fletcher is a former CEO of Fletcher distributes philanthropic funds given to the dispensing the rewards of his success on just Challenge Ltd whose time in business was University. causes, on educational enterprises such as ours, remembered as one of innovation. Since In his eulogy the Vice-Chancellor, Professor but ubiquitously too throughout the world in a graduating with a BSc and MCom with Stuart McCutcheon, said Mr Fletcher had way that displays his social conscience”. honours from Auckland he has strongly managed the challenge he set himself in • Currently the University has 52 living supported the University. university governance with the same care and honorary graduates, among them the Rt Hon He served 12 years as a University Council commitment as the challenge of business. The Helen Clark, the Rt Hon Dame Sian Elias, member and was Chancellor from 2004 to University was “extremely pleased to be able to Maurice Gee and Sir Anand Satyanand. World debaters A University of Auckland Debating Society (for the top 16 teams) since the 2008 World the University’s Debating Society. team was placed in the top 16 at the World Championships. “At a tournament featuring 400 teams from Universities’ Debating Championships held in The Auckland A team of Stephanie Thompson more than 70 countries, having two teams in the Manila, Philippines earlier last month. and Ben Milsom also reached the octo-finals top 32 spots is an outstanding achievement for After competing in nine rounds of debating, reserved for the top 32 teams. Both debaters Auckland. Auckland C consisting of Max Lin and the Auckland B team of Nupur Upadhyay and were ranked in the Top 50 best speakers at a Todd Livingstone also did incredibly well, keeping Joshua Baxter beat teams from Oxford and Yale tournament involving 800 speakers. in contention for the octo-finals right up until in the octo-final debate to progress through to “These rankings reflect the depth of talent and the end.” the quarter-final. This is the first time an skill possessed by these two highly persuasive Auckland team has reached the quarter-finals individuals,” says Nupur Upadhyay, President of Continued on from page 1 starting to treat cells in vitro (inside a test tube) being trying to understand acute melanoma for “No one has really characterised the glutamate with drugs that block the glutamate receptor.” over 20 years and the cell lines we’ve grown pathway in melanoma so this is a real chance to “Stacey is a wonderful student,” says Professor from patients’ tumours are a big and unique understand what sustains and keeps signal Bruce Baguley, co director of the ACSRC and one resource for her to work with. molecules growing.” of four supervisors on the PhD project. “We’ve “This is a new area of study for us,” he adds. 2 16 February 2012 From the Vice-Chancellor Alumni Relations and Development The University’s centralised alumni relations highly-successful “Leading the Way” Fundraising and fundraising division is beginning 2012 Campaign, which began in 2006 and has raised under the new name of Alumni Relations and $170 million to support activities such as Development. research projects, and establishing academic The division was formerly called External chairs, fellowships, and student scholarships. The Relations, then External Relations and campaign will conclude at the end of 2012, with Development, but has donned the new name to planning now underway for the University’s directly reflect its primary activities, explains the on-going development strategy. Director, John Taylor. Also housed within Alumni Relations and Alumni Relations and Development is Development is The University of Auckland responsible for engaging with the University’s Foundation, a registered charitable organisation ever-growing alumni community, which currently that facilitates the partnership between the It is my pleasure to welcome you, along with all numbers 150,000, of which 113,000 are University and its donors.