Visiting scientist returns to complete research started 42 years ago
For the last three months Victoria University of Wellington’s Ferrier Research Institute has been host to a visiting scholar with a special connection to the research institute.
Dr Nadarajah Vethaviyasar obtained his PhD in 1971 under the supervision of Professor Robin Ferrier, for whom the Institute is named, and worked with him as postdoctoral researcher until 1973. As a visiting scientist he has had the opportunity to pick up strands of research that was started shortly before he left and has remained unfinished since.
“Professor Ferrier was a keen scientist, and a role model for many of us. He had a passion for synthetic methodologies using unsaturated sugars and he dragged me into it as well. It has been a wonderful opportunity to come back to Wellington and continue his work in this field after all this time.”
Dr Vethaviyasar’s research while at the Ferrier Research Institute is concerned with the use of inexpensive and readily available carbohydrate templates to synthesise new, more complex compounds.
“By using carbohydrates as chiral starting materials we can transform them into novel materials which have potential in a wide range of applications, such as in developing antibiotics. When I was originally starting this research with Professor Ferrier forty years ago the focus was on understanding the chemistry, today there is much more emphasis on how we use the chemistry for affecting biological outcomes.”
Dr Vethaviyasar’s visit was funded by the prestigious Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, that provides funding for British citizens from all backgrounds to travel overseas in pursuit of new and better ways of tackling a wide range of the current challenges facing the UK.
Ferrier Research Institute Director, Professor Richard Furneaux says that since the Institute became part of Victoria University in early 2012 they have had the opportunity to host several visiting scientists for short-term collaborations.
“We have had a number of approaches resulting in successful research collaborations with both practising scientists and postgraduate students. Dr Vethaviyasar’s connection to the institute, its namesake, and nature of the work—continuing Professor Ferrier’s unfinished research—has made this collaboration particularly special. It has been 42 years since we first met when I joined Robin’s group in the Chemistry Department at Victoria to start my own PhD.”