University of Otago pathology department head Prof Ian
Morison and Otago Zebrafish Facility director Dr Julia
Horsfield examine the facility's fish tanks, after a recent
funding boost. Photo supplied.
A further $100,000 donation has enabled the University of
Otago to expand its world-class Zebrafish Facility and greatly
increase its capacity to conduct medical studies, including
cancer research.
Zebrafish Facility director Dr Julia Horsfield is "absolutely
over the moon" about the donation, from the Tauranga-based
K.D. Kirkby Trust, which was formally announced yesterday.
The funding has already been used, through purchase of
equipment, to treble the facility's fish-housing space.
"Projects investigating childhood leukaemia and childhood
developmental disease will be able to expand, and a new
neuroscience project can also go ahead," Dr Horsfield said.
Other new projects at the facility included one devoted to
understanding how stem cells developed.
The funding, from the Tauranga-based trust, which is
administered by Guardian Trust, came through a donation to
Cure Kids, an organisation that fosters research into
life-threatening childhood illnesses.
The K.D. Kirkby Trust is a long-term supporter of medical
research at Otago University, and the latest donation brings
its total contribution to Cure Kids and the university to
$285,000 since 2005.
"I'm just incredibly grateful that someone would believe in
us to that extent," Dr Horsfield said.
Such research funding was "very, very difficult" to obtain.
The trust had opted to fund, through the facility - based at
the Otago pathology department - a significant "tool box"
which was being used by many researchers.
The facility had attracted top-flight personnel, six
researchers holding prestigious Marsden and Health Research
Council grants.
Otago pathology department head Prof Ian Morison said the new
equipment would benefit research significantly and also boost
the work of many scientists throughout the university's
division of health sciences.
In childhood leukaemia research, zebrafish allowed scientists
to test individual genes and to "unravel the origins of this
devastating disease" he said.
• The late Kathleen Kirkby, of Tauranga, was involved with
the Red Cross, and was awarded a Queen's Service Medal in
1982.
- john.gibb@odt.co.nz
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