Dear Colleagues,

It is hard to believe that the first semester teaching is finished, exams are over and we are preparing for the start of the second semester. On top of doing our “day jobs” it is great to see the school’s successes in the latest grant rounds. This success is an endorsement of the excellence of our research and the hard work of our researchers, especially in a very competitive research environment.

I also wish to congratulate Ray Gilbert, Mary Spellman and Vicky Tsang who as members of the HazTRAC Subject Matter Experts team were recently awarded the inaugural Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Award for Health, Safety and Wellbeing.

The goal of the HazTRAC project was to identify and implement across the whole University a single inventory management system for all chemical and biological (including hazardous and restricted) materials, and lab consumables. The result of the project is the impending rollout of SciQuest ERM - an inventory management and procurement tool that will securely track and manage the full life cycle of material from point of purchase, transport, storage, and use through to the disposal of hazardous and restricted materials.

The HazTRAC project represents an infrastructural investment by the University to meet its strategic objective of making the institution ‘A safe and healthy environment’. To make sure we all contribute to this objective, the University is trying to foster an organisational culture that is characterised by attitudes to health and safety which are proactive, responsible and based on mutual respect and regard.

Hence our next school forum will provide an opportunity for all staff and graduate students to hear updates and progress on University initiatives to continually create a safe place to work and study. Lee Dewhurst, Associate Director for Health, Safety and Wellbeing will be attending and will provide insight into how the University plans to work with you to provide quality advice, support and resources to manage the risk associated with everything we do.

I encourage you to attend the forum, which will be followed by a social mixer to mark the end of semester and to celebrate our successes. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the Wednesday, 13 July.

Regards,

Professor Paul Donaldson
Head of School, School of Medical Sciences
Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences

Congratulations to Anna Laurenson who has been appointed to the new position of Bequest Coordinator for the Human Body Bequest Programme within the Department of Anatomy and Medical Imaging. This role incorporates responsibilities previously facilitated by academics within the department.

Over the last two years Anna has been responsible for some aspects of the role alongside her work as a Support Technician for the Medical Sciences Learning Centre and the Clinical Skills Centre, where she started in 2006. Her working background is as a registered nurse at Auckland City Hospital and in general practice, as a reference librarian for Auckland City Libraries and as a landscape gardener. She continues to assist her husband in the running of their general practice in Mount Eden and is a mum to their three children aged 15 years to 22 years.

Anna looks forward to continue working in and developing the new Bequest Coordinator role. She feels extremely privileged to be working alongside such great colleagues within the Human Body Bequest Programme, Human Anatomy Laboratory and Medical Sciences Learning Centre.

Congratulations to our internationally renowned brain researcher Distinguished Professor Richard Faull who was recently awarded for his outstanding contributions to health research excellence.

The awards were presented by Health Research Council Chief Executive, Professor Kath McPherson and Board Chair Dr Lester Levy at the University of Auckland’s annual “Celebrating Research Excellence Awards”

Congratulations to Dr Ali Mirjalili who has just released an app and published a book called “Anatomy for GSSE.

Dr Ali Mirjalili and Mr Robbie McPhee (Graphic Artist, University of Otago) recently launched an app on the App store entitled "Anatomy for GSSE”. The app is a collection of questions and short notes to assist junior doctors and surgical trainees to successfully sit their GSSE (Generic Surgical Sciences Examination) exams. A hard copy (ISBN: 978-7-89456-719-2) will be published in June by the People's Medical Publishing House (PMPH), the largest Chinese Medical publishing company under the Chinese Ministry of Health.

The questions in the app are designed to highlight key surgical anatomy areas, and are supplemented with images which replicate generic surgical sciences examination (GSSE) spot-test type questions. The short notes are intended as a quick reference guide which junior doctors and surgeons can refer to whilst "between patients" or while preparing for surgery. Illustrations accompanying the short notes highlight particular anatomical relationships which can sometimes be difficult to grasp or understand.

Mr McPhee has previously had his illustrations published in the 150th anniversary edition of Gray's Anatomy, and on covers of several international journals.

To purchase the app please click here

Well done to Dr Kimberley Mellor on being awarded the University of Auckland Early Career Researcher award. The funding from this award will support pilot experiments investigating the tissue-specific regulation of glycogen in diabetes using a novel proteomics approach. It will also provide funds for travel costs for Kimberley to attend international conferences in China and Australia, where she has been invited to present her research.

Congratulations to Professor Janusz Lipski, on being awarded the Butland teaching award for Excellence in Research Supervision.

SMS HazTRAC Subject Matter Experts win Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Award

Ray Gilbert, Mary Spellman and Vicky Tsang from the School of Medical Sciences, were one half of the team that were recently awarded the inaugural Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Award for Health, Safety and Wellbeing.

The six HazTRAC Subject Matter Experts (SMEs); Ray, Mary, Vicky and three other staff from Faculty of Science were selected ”for their work on the implementation and standardisation of SciQuest ERM University-wide, substantially reducing the risk from both chemicals and biologicals to staff and students.” The implementation of SciQuest and associated practices is expected to have a significant University wide impact with an associated longevity going forward.

The SMEs have put in many hundreds of hours of work to help set up the implementation and have all been involved as members of the reference group. Ray and Prof Paul Donaldson are also members of the Steering Committee.

The SMEs have communicated across all levels of the project and across faculties and service divisions. This should ensure the resulting SciQuest implementation would cover all the University and regulatory requirements for chemical and biological risk. It will also ensure the systems for purchasing and tracking these items is of maximum benefit to staff and students.

The award is part of the revamped VC’s Excellence Awards – Health, Safety and Wellbeing was recognised as a category for the first time this year. The award was open to all staff and students of the University. The award was presented to the SME team at the Alumni Marquee on 5 May.

Congratulations to the following students who have successfully defended their theses:

Michelle Munro - successfully defended her doctoral thesis ‘Multi-Scale Cardiomyocyte Organisation as a Determinant of Cardiac Function’

Supervised by Professor Christian Soeller and co-supervised by Dr David Crossman and Dr Marie Ward

Ankita Umapathy - received The Vice-Chancellor’s Prize for Best Doctoral Thesis. Ankita’s thesis was entitled ‘Glutathione metabolism and transport pathways in the anterior rat eye: Is the lens a reservoir of glutathione?’

Supervised by Dr Julie Lim and Professor Paul Donaldson

The Cardiac Structure and Function Group comprises of physiologists, clinicians and bioengineers from the School of Medical Sciences, Auckland City Hospital, and the Auckland Bioengineering Institute. They have an international reputation for high-quality experimental, imaging, and modelling work on the structure and function of normal and abnormal hearts. This has led to a strong citation record and collaborations with research groups in Australia, Europe, Asia and North America.

The primary focus of their current research, funded by an HRC Programme grant, is investigating how myocardial fibrosis leads to abnormal electrical activity in the heart and often fatal cardiac arrhythmia. Fibrosis is an increase in collagen which occurs naturally with age, but also has a number of other causes including heart attack and heart failure. 

In this work they undertake in vivo and ex vivo electrical mapping to record the spread of waves of electrical activation across the atria or ventricles. Recording of electrical signals is achieved using various techniques, many of which have been developed by their group over 20 years, including arrays of transmural needle electrodes, epicardial electrode socks, intracardiac balloon catheters, and body surface electrode strips, as well as optical techniques that utilise voltage-sensitive dyes to measure transmembrane potential.

They then use the extended-volume confocal imaging systems developed by their group, MRI, and micro-CT to capture three-dimensional images of myocardial geometry and microstructure.  This allows them to examine regional details of myocardial structure from the cellular level to the whole heartand relate these to specific characteristics of the electrical activity in those regions. 

The rich datasets gathered during their experiments are large and complex, and interpretation of such data requires sophisticated computer modelling and analysis techniques, many of which are developed within their group.

This combination of experiment, imaging and modelling within the one research group is a particular advantage and provides great potential for developing valuable insights into the relationship between myocardial fibrosis and cardiac arrhythmia.  They expect their research to lead to more specifically targeted therapies and improved clinical outcomes for cardiac patients.