Ferrier highlights

2015 marked the second year since the establishment of the Ferrier Research Institute. The year was characterised by successes on many fronts, as our scientists continue our work on developing better drugs, industrial materials and manufacturing technologies.

29 December 2015

Staff

Promotions

Professors Gary Evans, Gavin Painter and Peter Tyler assumed their roles as professors while Professor Bradley Williams accepted the offer of such a position later in the year. Professor Williams was also appointed to the role of Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Research at Victoria University.

New staff

We welcomed five new members to our scientific and technical staff—Dr Tanzeel Arif, David Burr, Dr Michael Fraser, Katie Moore and Dr Farah Lamiable-Oulaidi. We retained the services of Janet Colson from Victoria’s Development Office to assist with outreach to philanthropists.

Saying goodbye

We bade farewell after many years of sustained contributions to Dr Douglas Crump on retirement, and to Dr Anthony Woolhouse following his untimely death.

Awards and recognition

• Professors Gary Evans and Bradley Williams were appointed as assessors of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) Smart Ideas bids.
• Professor Richard Furneaux served on the Rutherford Discovery Fellowships panel.
• Dr Phillip Rendle was jointly awarded the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry Shimadzu Prize for Excellence in Industrial and Applied Chemistry alongside Dr Paul Benjes of GlycoSyn.
• Drs Simon Hinkley, Ralf Schwoerer and Olga Zubkova were inducted as Fellows of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry.
• Dr Ralf Schwoerer and Professor Bradley Williams serve as committee members of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry, Wellington Branch, and Professor Williams also serves on the Council of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Wellington Branch.
• Dr Shivali Gulab was recognised as the NZBIO Young Scientist of the Year by the New Zealand Biotechnology Industry Association.
• Dr Ian Sims was appointed as an Editorial of International Journal of Biological Macromolecules and Dr Olga Zubkova as a Review Editor for Frontiers in Chemistry.

Research funding success

• Professor Peter Tyler was awarded a Marsden Grant on “Synthetic sulfated saccharides in cell signalling” valued at $790,000.
• Three MBIE Smart Ideas grants—each valued at $1 million—were awarded to Dr Phillip Rendle for “Treating polyglutamine diseases with synthetic dendrimers—PEEs and Qs in the mind” with Professor Russell Snell at University of Auckland, to Professor Gary Evans for “Biofilm Resistant Materials” with researchers at University of Otago and Callaghan Innovation, and to Professor Bradley Williams for “Anti Foul Marine Paints”. In addition, Dr Ian Sims is an Associate Investigator (AI) on the Smart Idea grant “Functional Formula” of Professor Gerald Tannock at the University of Otago.
• Dr Simon Hinkley secured Kiwinet funding of $120,000 for his research entitled “Manufacture of Semi-synthetic Heparan Sulfate”.

In the classroom

• Staff contributed four sets of lectures to Victoria’s CHEM 424 and CHEM 425 courses. These lectures broadened the scope of content in these courses and gave students valuable access to Ferrier staff.
• Staff supervised or co-supervised three PhD students and one Master’s student. In addition, we hosted nine summer students who started their work in November—three with industry co-funding.
• Professor Bradley Williams, together with colleagues from Victoria’s Schools of Biological Sciences and Chemical and Physical Sciences, drove the creation of a new taught Master’s programme in Drug Discovery and Development. This programme fills a gap in the Australasian region and is unique in its offering, providing students an end-to-end perspective of the drug discovery, development and commercialisation phases.

In the news

• Our achievements and activities featured in no fewer than nine domestic and international news items, ranging from publications such as New Zealand Herald and Dominion Post to international publicity in the American Chemical Society’s Chemical and Engineering News, a Spotlight feature in ACS Chemical Biology and a feature on Avalia Immunotherapies Ltd in Bioworld Today. Avalia has been set up to commercialise research stemming from a key collaboration between Professors Gavin Painter (Ferrier) and Ian Hermans (Malaghan Institute of Medical Research).

Donations and support

In 2015 we invited the donor community to partner in our mission to enhance health and wellbeing through improved treatment of serious diseases. We are very grateful to our group of generous donors who have enabled us to expand our research programmes in breast cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and drug discovery. In particular we would like to thank The Stewart Charitable Trust, The Genesis Oncology Trust and the Infinity Foundation for:

• The Stewart Charitable Trust’s continued support of the PhD studies of Amira Brackovic.
• The Infinity Foundation’s support for a research project led by Professor Gary Evans on “Helping develop new techniques to make drug treatments more targeted and less toxic”.
• Genesis Oncology Trust’s support to Professor Gavin Painter on “Fat and sugar to the rescue—lipoglycan cancer vaccines”.

Scientific activities

Research papers

We produced 37 papers in leading international journals. Key articles include:

• R.J. Anderson, B. J. Compton, C.-w. Tang, A. Authier-Hall, C.M. Hayman, G.W. Swinerd, R. Kowalczyk, P. Harris, M.A. Brimble, D.S. Larsen, O. Gasser, R. Weinkove, I.F. Hermans and G.F. Painter, NKT Cell-Dependent Glycolipid-Peptide Vaccines with Potent Antitumour Activity, Chemical Science, 6 (2015) 5120-5127.
• S. Wang, S.A. Cameron, K. Clinch, G.B. Evans, Z. Wu, P.C. Tyler and V.L. Schramm, Transition state analogues for Helicobacter pylori aminofutalosine nucleosidase, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 137 (2015) 14275-14280.
• C.J. Tristram, J.M. Mason, D.B.G. Williams and S.F.R. Hinkley, Doubly Renewable Cellulose Polymer for Water-Based Coatings, ChemSusChem, 8 (2015) 63-66 (cover feature).
• P.C. Tyler, S.E. Guimond, J.E. Turnbull and O.V. Zubkova, Single Entity Heparan Sulfate Glycomimetic Clusters for Therapeutic Applications, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 54 (2015) 2718-2723.

Conferences

Staff produced 12 conference contributions to domestic and international conferences, many as invited or plenary lectures.

Patents

Staff were named as inventors on two granted United States patents as well as two new patent applications, four International Patent (PCT) filings, and 10 that entered the national phase.

Collaborations

• Our joint venture with GlycoSyn, a wholly owned unit of Callaghan Innovation, continues to be an asset to Ferrier. We completed $1 million of applied research and development contracts during the year for domestic and international clients.
• Six staff members were appointed as Principal Investigators in the Centre for Biodiscovery at Victoria University.
• Staff members actively collaborate with colleagues in seven universities or research institutes in three different countries.
• A key “Chemical Immunology” collaboration was set up between Ferrier and the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research. This builds upon a growing number of individual collaborations between the staffs of these two institutes and a mutual recognition of the value of these collaborations.

Industry placements

Ferrier hosted three industry placements from AQUI-S New Zealand Ltd, Drikolor (D’Arcy Polychrome Ltd) and Otago Innovation Ltd. These placements give industry access to our world class facilities and cohort of scientists to help solve pressing commercial problems.

International placements

Drs Shivali Gulab and Scott Cameron are placed at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York.

Annual Ferrier lecture

Professor Larry Overman of the University of California, Irvine, delivered the 2015 Ferrier Lecture entitled “Natural Products Synthesis: Insights into Chemical Reactivity and Inspiration for New Antitumour Agents”. The lecture was attended by an audience of over 100.

Commercialisation activities

A new company—Avalia Immunotherapies Ltd—was established in April to advance intellectual property and product concepts for synthetic vaccines against cancer, with investment from PowerHouse Ventures, the New Zealand Venture Investment Fund, Malcorp, Otago Innovation Ltd and Viclink, Victoria University’s commercialisation office.