Type 2, or adult onset diabetes, is running at epidemic proportions in New Zealand with the Ministry of Health estimating that as many as 200,000 people - or five per cent of the adult population - have diabetes; half are still undiagnosed.
The importance of talking to young children is well recognised, but just how important has been revealed by research at Otago's Department of Psychology.
Otago genetic researchers have discovered exactly how a deadly hereditary type of stomach cancer develops, giving new hope to families affected by the disease.
New Zealand has had a rich history of engagement with Asia, but the impact and influence of Asian peoples and cultures here has become increasingly visible in the last 15 years.
Being able to record the activity of single brain cells is enabling Department of Physiology researchers to gain an insight into how a new generation of drugs - called A2A receptor antagonists - are acting on brains affected by Parkinson's disease.
Look around at any Anzac Day service and what do you see? As expected, there are a few veterans, their numbers reducing each year. But perhaps unexpectedly, there are young people in increasing numbers.
New Zealand already spends about 10 per cent of its health budget on chronic kidney disease and its downstream effects, and the prospect of an increasing epidemic is putting even greater emphasis on research.
Paediatric neurologist Dr Lynette Sadleir, from the University of Otago, Wellington, is on a gene hunt. She is very keen to track down those genes, or combinations of genes, that can be linked to major forms of epilepsy or, more correctly, epilepsy syndromes.
After years of international scientific debate, scientists from Otago's Free Radical Research Group in Christchurch have recently made a major advance as to how white blood cells destroy invading bacteria in the body - bleach.
PC may soon mean personal computer instead of psychiatric care for people seeking help with depression.
Depression is one of the most common psychological disorders in our society and is usually treated either with medication or by psychotherapy ("talking therapy"), involving consultations over some weeks and months with a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist or counsellor.
Being on the POPs chart might be considered a good thing in music circles, but for chemists like Dr Kimberly Hageman, the POPs list is a very different thing.
Honey bee queens control their offspring with chemicals (pheromones), but just how these chemicals work largely remained a mystery until recent studies by the "bee team" at Otago's Department of Zoology.
Professor Rosalind Gibson
Forty years after beginning her research career in Ethiopia, Human Nutrition Professor Rosalind Gibson has returned to the south of that country to work among some of the many people in sub-Saharan Africa who have a nutritional status particularly low in zinc.
Dr Gerry Closs
Understanding the habits and behaviour of the wily brown trout is one of the great sports-fishing challenges of the South Island, attracting anglers from all over the world.
Professor Glenn Summerhayes
The remote Kosipe Valley, in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, may hold a key piece in a global jigsaw puzzle that explains how and when ancestors of modern humans left Africa somewhere around 60-70,000 years ago.
Associate Professor David Bilkey
Why are some people tone deaf? This question has long puzzled scientists, but Otago's Psychology researchers have come up with surprising evidence about the brain processes involved.
Professor Murray Thomson
Anyone who has experienced toothache knows how debilitating it can be. For young children, it can have a devastating effect on both them and their families. But just how much the oral health of youngsters affects lives has been hard to quantify - until now.
Anyone who has experienced toothache knows how debilitating it can be. For young children, it can have a devastating effect on both them and their families. But just how much the oral health of youngsters affects lives has been hard to quantify - until now.
Diane Ruwhiu and Phil Broughton
Mäori and general business communities have more in common than differences, and both would gain from closer collaboration.
That was just one finding of a wide-ranging national survey of Mäori and mainstream business networks, organisations and government agencies, to find ways for them to work together for the benefit of themselves and the economy.