Waikato News

As part of the IUPAC Global Women’s Breakfast event on 11 February for female chemists and supporters, a very enjoyable breakfast was held at Jack’s Coffee Lounge in Hamilton.  This was one of 420 events held in 78 countries globally and we were one of the very first breakfasts to launch.

University of Waikato

Michèle Prinsep, Ben Dickson, Megan Grainger and Tam Stringer all attended the NZIC conference in Dunedin in November 2024 and gave the following talks: “Investigating chemical criminals: probing nudibranch-prey interactions using chemical and biological tools” (Michèle), “When life gives you sulfatases, make sulfates!” (Ben), “Metal analysis: insight into honeybee health” (Megan) and “Repurposing antimicrobial ligands as scaffolds for platinum group metal (PGM) anticancer complexes” (Tam). In the NZIC branch student oral competition, Waikato was ably represented by Nikki Webb and her talk entitled, “Using mouse and insect bioassays to isolate and understand novel tremorgenic alkaloids in Epichloë endophyte-infected perennial ryegrass.” 

Graham Saunders attended the American Chemical Society’s 27^th Winter Fluorine Conference and gave an oral presentation entitled, “Carbon-fluorine bond cleavage by N-heterocycle carbene complexes”. 

Matthew Risi has submitted his PhD thesis entitled, “Studies on the coordination chemistry of functionalised thiourea ligands”. Lauren Gris has also submitted her PhD thesis entitled, “Chemoecological investigations of predator-prey relationships in New Zealand nudibranchs for the discovery of new natural products.” Both Matthew and Lauren have secured positions in Europe. Matthew will be working with Paul Dyson at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland and Lauren will be working at Oril Industrie in Bolbec, Normandy, a subsidiary of French pharmaceutical company Servier. We congratulate them both and wish them all the best with their new positions. 

Congratulations also to Bastiaan Banks who was the winner of the J. E. Allan memorial prize for the best second-year student in chemistry.

Scion

Scion offers hands-on access to NMR tools

Scion now boasts two advanced NMR instruments: a Bruker NEO/EVO 600 MHz solution state NMR and a Bruker NEO/EVO 500 MHz solid (CP-MAS) and soft matter (HR-MAS) state NMR. Scion is committed to collaborative research and has an open-door policy, providing hands-on access to these state-of-the-art tools for interested researchers.

For more information visit: Scion - Scion invests in cutting-edge innovation upgrade

Congratulations to Scion’s Dr Bing Song, who has been awarded a Marsden Fast Start grant for his three-year project looking into the fundamentals of glucose transformations under electrocatalysis. This research will establish a framework for converting biomass waste into high-value chemicals.

Scion supports gene tech bill 

Gene technology is key to delivering significant benefits for New Zealand, Scion says. Its submission to government on the Gene Technology Bill highlights its view that modernisation of these regulations is essential – and says existing regulations have stifled research, innovation and commercialisation.

Scion hosts New Zealand’s only plant GMO trial and is a key research provider for many of New Zealand's biotechnology companies. Read its full submission here.