On behalf of faculty it is a pleasure to congratulate Dr Tarik Sammour on his winning one of just five Vice Chancellor’s Prizes for the Best Doctoral Thesis awarded by The University of Auckland in 2011. Tarik won his award for his thesis: The peritoneal response to injury and implications for laparascopic insufflations which was undertaken through the Department of Surgery in the School of Medicine. Tarik’s supervisor was Professor Andrew Hill from the South Auckland Clinical School and he was co-supervised by Associate Professor Roger Booth. Tarik is no stranger to awards having won the “Mark Killingback Prize” at the 2009 Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Annual Scientific Congress (ASC) held in Brisbane, for his oral presentation “Double Blind Randomised Controlled Trial of the Influence of Glucocorticoids on Post-Operative Recovery Following Colectomy”. Currently Tarik is a surgical registrar at Middlemore Hospital.

Each year the Vice Chancellor’s Prize for the Best Doctoral Thesis is awarded to the five most exceptional theses successfully examined. Criteria for nomination include the demonstrable significance of each thesis in its field, the originality and excellence of the research, exceptional academic and intellectual achievement as well as timely completion. This year 19 nominations were received from faculties for the five prizes, these out of a total of 319 doctoral degrees successfully awarded. To be nominated in this elite group is an achievement of some note in itself, so we are happy to also extend our congratulations to the following nominations from FMHS and the Liggins Institute which made the 19 nominated theses:

• Dr Ruth Allen, a Professional Teaching & Research Fellow in the Department of Social and Community Health at the SOPH
• Dr Eric Kim, from the Department of Anatomy with Radiology
• Dr Kitty Bach, a paediatrician who completed her PhD with the Liggins Institute

Congratulations to BHSc student John Palavi who has been named to play for the Auckland Warriors against South Sydney this weekend. Not yet 20, John has been in the Warriors camp since he was just 16 in Year 12 at Auckland’s St Paul’s College, and this season so far he has been captain of the Junior Warriors after being their Player of the Year for 2011. He has also been a member of the Junior Kiwis.

John excelled at St Pauls where he was both head boy and school dux in 2010. In the 55 years since St Paul's opened, no student has claimed as many awards at the annual school prize giving than the 21 John collected, and in addition to these he was awarded a University of Auckland Chancellors’ Award for Top Maori and Pacific Scholars, this valued at $35,000. His academic prowess was recognised last year when he was named as the Toyota Cup Academic Player of the Year. John hopes to complete his BHSc and to continue on to train as a doctor and eventually to become a surgeon.

One of the current buzzwords we hear used with increasing frequency these days is innovation. Innovation, true to its Latin derivation, refers to renewing or changing an existing situation. It is what we all believe we should be doing, but can be quite difficult for those already working with the status quo. It was this need to look at something with fresh eyes that saw Professor John Windsor (Surgery) and Associate Professor Bruce MacDonald (Electrical and Computer Engineering) come up with the idea of exposing engineering students to clinical environments under the programme Engineers in Clinical Residence.

Doctoral students Paul Roberts, Robert Dunn and final-year undergraduate Sarah Milsom were chosen as the first engineers on the programme. Over the week of the recent course, they attended sessions at Auckland City Hospital’s Cardiothoracic Surgery, Clinical Engineering, General Surgery, Anaesthesia, Nutrition, Critical Care, Interventional Radiology and Neurosurgery departments, as well as visits to witness robotic surgery at Ascot Hospital and the Simulation Centre for Patient Safety at the Tamaki campus. Their feedback has been very useful in providing the fresh eyes all protocols can regularly benefit from.

Both faculties see health technologies as an important research areas and so the opportunity for engineers and clinicians to talk together is vital if we are to create the innovative solutions that are both needed and totally possible given the expertise available across the two faculties. These first steps are very encouraging and point to possible other such initiatives or programmes across the University as we strive to not just do things better, but smarter.

On the evening of Good Friday thieves broke into one of the faculty’s sites at 89 Grafton Road and made off with numerous computers and associated equipment. This is as I understand it the second burglary there in the last few months. This is just a reminder then for us all to ensure that we are doing our bit in terms of security around the faculty and the spaces we work in. Laptops and other valuables should if possible be locked away, and doors and windows secured when you are not in your office or other workspace.

• Special research seminar: Modelling and molecular interactions. Presented by Dr Joel Tyndall. Monday 16 April, 3-4pm, MAC 1 seminar room, Old Biology Building. Add to your calendar
• Tömaiora seminar: Findings from the lung cancer research project. Presented by Dr Matire Harwood (Ngäpuhi). Tuesday 17 April, 12.30-1.30pm, Room 730-220, Tāmaki Innovation Campus.  Add to your calendar
• Spark roadshow: Pathways to the clinic: The drug development ecosystem in New Zealand. Presented by Professor Peter Shepherd and Professor Bill Denny. Tuesday 17 April, 4-5pm, Seminar Room 501-505, Grafton Campus.  Add to your calendar
• Liggins Institute seminar series: Lipids and oxidative stress as mediators of endothelial pathophysiology in obesity. Presented by Dr Elise Donovan. Wednesday 18 April, 4-5pm, Liggins Institute Seminar Room, Level 1, Building 529.  Add to your calendar
• Methods & issues seminars: Causal inference in observational settings (A preliminary review). Presented by Professor Peter Davis. Thursday 26 April, 12.30-1.30pm, Room 730-373, Tāmaki Innovation Campus.  Add to your calendar
• Optogenetic seminar: Optogenetic mapping of brain circuitry. Presented by Professor George Augustine. Thursday 26 April, 4-5pm, Seminar Room 501-505, Grafton Campus.  Add to your calendar
• Pharmacology seminar series: Targeting CNS astrocytes with recombinant adeno-associated viral vectors and activating adult human microglia. Presented by Janitha Mudannayake and Amy Smith. Friday 27 April, 3.30-4.30pm, Seminar Room 501-505, Grafton Campus.  Add to your calendar