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Search Marsden awards 2008–2017

Search awarded Marsden Fund grants 2008–2017

Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2012

Title: Molecular understanding of flowering time regulation in legumes

Recipient(s): Dr RC Macknight | PI | University of Otago
Dr J Weller | AI | University of Tasmania

Public Summary: Domestication by early farmers and improvement by modern breeders have dramatically transformed wild plants into today’s crops. Flowering time is a critical agronomic trait and its evolution was essential for the domestication and spread of wild plants into new climatic regions. This project aims to; (i) discover how legumes use seasonal changes in daylength and temperature to precisely control their flowering time and, (ii) understand how this process has evolved to allow natural populations of legumes to grow in new geographical regions. Ultimately, this knowledge will enable plant breeders to more efficiently develop new legume varieties tailored for different geographical regions.

Total Awarded: $791,304

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Dr RC Macknight

Panel: CMP

Project ID: 12-UOO-168


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2009

Title: Mothers' darlings: children of indigenous women and World War Two American servicemen in New Zealand and South Pacific societies

Recipient(s): Associate Professor JA Bennett | PI | University of Otago
Dr AC Wanhalla | PI | University of Otago
Dr PS Herda | AI | The University of Auckland
Associate Professor JV Leckie | AI | University of Otago

Public Summary: The histories of mothers and their several thousand children, fathered by American servicemen in the South Pacific Command in World War II, are missing from standard accounts of New Zealand and the other Pacific Islands. Oral interviews and documentary research will the main methodological tools. An edited book with narration by the interviewees, where culturally appropriate, will be one major outcome. This research will reveal the nature of wartime encounters, the institutional and racist barriers to stable relationships, and the fate of the children, so deepening our understanding of New Zealand society and the origins of postwar Pacific immigrants.

Total Awarded: $815,111

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Associate Professor JA Bennett

Panel: SOC

Project ID: 09-UOO-023


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2012

Title: Motivation and achievement: a study of complex relations

Recipient(s): Dr FA Hodis | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Prof JAC Hattie | AI | University of Melbourne

Public Summary: Students who lack motivation underachieve and miss important opportunities to acquire knowledge and skills. In no other educational settings is this problem more serious than at the secondary school level: students who fail to minimally achieve leave school without qualifications and, subsequently, have major difficulties continuing their education or finding sustainable employment. To overcome this important problem, it is essential to know what motivates students, whether motivation changes across the last years of secondary school, and how motivation and achievement relate to each other over time. Although extant research has taken important steps toward mapping motivated and unmotivated behaviours, these pivotal issues are far from being understood. The proposed research will overcome these fundamental limitations and provide answers to five salient questions: (a) What are the motivational orientations which, taken together, can describe accurately and efficiently student motivation? (b) How do these orientations work together to determine different types of motivation? (c) Do (some of) these motivational orientations change systematically across time? (d) For the motivational orientations that develop over time, are given change processes similar or different across observed (e.g., ethnicity, socioeconomic status) and unobserved groups? (e) How does change in motivation relate to change in achievement?

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: Victoria University of Wellington

Contact Person: Dr FA Hodis

Panel: SOC

Project ID: 12-VUW-053


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2010

Title: Moving genes in genome structure and memory

Recipient(s): Dr JM O'Sulllivan | PI | Massey University
Prof SM Gasser | AI | Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research
Dr LR Gehlan | AI | Massey University
Dr MB Jones | AI | Massey University
Prof J Langowski | AI | German Cancer Research Centre
Prof RA Martienssen | AI | Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Public Summary: We can now sequence entire genomes within days. Moreover, it is possible to synthesize a genome and insert it into donor cells to form “synthetic” organisms. Despite these advances we have little understanding of the inter-relationships between genome structure and function. This is exemplified by our awareness that yeast cells have a position-based genetic memory, yet we remain unsure how this system relates to overall yeast genome structure. Our objective is to use Baker’s and fission yeast to investigate this inter-relationship and answer fundamental questions about the formation and inheritance of genome structure. We will integrate cutting-edge molecular and microscopic techniques to determine genome structure in synchronized yeast strains containing loci whose positions have been artificially constrained. Moreover, mutations within the fission yeast cell cycle and RNAi pathways will be used to resolve how chromatin organization is inherited. Our unique approach will shift the conceptual framework within which we consider three-dimensional genome structure and gene regulation. This will impact on a wide range of endeavours including our ability to predict how genetic modifications affect genome function in biotechnological and therapeutic applications. New Zealand will benefit through the development and repatriation of novel molecular, microscopic, bioinformatic and biophysical techniques.

Total Awarded: $734,783

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University

Contact Person: Dr JM O'Sulllivan

Panel: CMP

Project ID: 10-MAU-081


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2010

Title: Multi storey living with kids in mind: constraints and opportunities for children's mobility and development in the context of competing discourses of safety and independence

Recipient(s): Assoc Prof K Witten | PI | Massey University
Prof R Kearns | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr L Asiasiga | AI | Massey University
Dr E Lin | AI | Massey University
Ms S Mavoa | AI | Massey University
Assoc Prof H Moewaka Barnes | AI | Massey University

Public Summary: The number of families with children living in intensive urban environments in Aotearoa/New Zealand has greatly increased in the past decade. This trend is likely to continue given housing affordability issues, rising transport costs, and nation-wide policies of urban intensification. Opportunities for outdoor play and independent mobility have been shown to effect children’s healthy cognitive, social and physical development. Yet lack of children’s outdoor amenities and an overwhelming emphasis on safety has resulted in a generation of urban children increasingly oriented to ‘the great indoors’, closely supervised while outside, and chauffeured to school and other activities by parents.

The aim of this project is to understand opportunities and constraints on play and independent activity for children living in medium and high density housing in inner city Auckland. It will investigate the mobility of children (8-11years) using Geographic Positioning and Information Systems (GPS and GIS); and, through one-on-one interviews, examine and contrast children’s and parents’ discourses and practices around play, safety, the built environment and wellbeing. Focus groups of parents and children will then consider how intensive urban environments could best support children’s safety and independent mobility, and the potential contributions of these for healthy child development.

Total Awarded: $700,000

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University

Contact Person: Assoc Prof K Witten

Panel: SOC

Project ID: 10-MAU-157


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2010

Title: Multi-Banach algebras and Banach cohomology

Recipient(s): Dr HL Pham | PI | Victoria University of Wellington
Prof HG Dales | AI | University of Leeds

Public Summary: Banach spaces and Banach algebras are infinite-dimensional generalization of matrices. One source of inspiration for Banach spaces and Banach algebras is from the study of differential/integral operators. Group algebras and Fourier algebras of locally compact groups are special Banach algebras that model the well-known Fourier transformation. Cohomology theory provides a method of studying a particular algebra by studying a set of invariants called cohomology groups.

This project aims to resolve some natural questions in the cohomology theory of Banach algebras. Specifically, we aim to determine when certain natural modules over Fourier algebras satisfy certain homological properties. We plan to employ multi-Banach algebra techniques in attacking these questions. Multi-Banach algebras were introduced recently by Dales and Polyakov. Multi-norm techniques have proved to be a fruitful in solving problems in classical Banach algebra theory, as demonstrated in our recent work. We shall need to develop these techniques further in order to solve our current problems. We believe that our results will have important applications in other problems in Banach algebra theory outside those addressed in our project.

Total Awarded: $260,870

Duration: 3

Host: Victoria University of Wellington

Contact Person: Dr HL Pham

Panel: MIS

Project ID: 10-VUW-058


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2008

Title: Multi-purpose mechanisms for preservation of nerve cell function

Recipient(s): Prof WC Abraham | PI | University of Otago
Dr CR Raymond | AI | Australian National University

Public Summary: Nerve cells are delicate biological machines that tightly regulate their function to protect against the destructive effects of too much activity as well as extrinsic insults. We have discovered a unique form of long-range feedback regulation at the connections between nerve cells that prevents runaway strengthening and thereby damagingly high levels of neural activity. We will use modern electrophysiological, neuropharmacological and 2-photon fluorescent imaging techniques to determine the mechanisms of this regulation. Additionally, we will test the novel hypothesis that these same mechanisms protect neurons against the extrinsic toxic effects of oxygen-glucose deprivation, a model of ischemic stroke.

Total Awarded: $728,889

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Prof WC Abraham

Panel: BMS

Project ID: 08-UOO-070


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2010

Title: Multifunctional azoles: A triple whammy designed to defeat drug resistance

Recipient(s): Dr BC Monk | PI | University of Otago
Dr DS Bellows | AI | Victoria University of Wellington
Dr E Fleischer | AI | MicroCombiChem
Prof A Goffeau | AI | Universite catholique de Louvain
Dr MV Keniya | AI | University of Otago
Dr A Klinger | AI | MicroCombiChem
Dr RM Stroud | AI | University of California, San Francisco
Dr JDR Tyndall | AI | University of Otago

Public Summary: The induction of drug efflux pumps by xenobiotics has rendered useless many drugs and agrochemicals. A regulatory network that senses xenobiotics and confers multiple drug resistance on the model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae will be used to obtain proof-of-principle for multifunctional triazoles (MFTs). These compounds will be single molecule inhibitors of ergosterol biosynthesis and xenobiotic-induced multidrug efflux. We will seek compounds that inactivate a xenobiotic sensing transcriptional regulator which activates the Pleiotropic Drug Resistance network responsible for the efflux of azole antifungals. These transcriptional inactivators will be linked covalently to a triazole scaffold to test the MFT concept. MFTs will inhibit the triazole target (lanosterol 14alpha-demethylase), the transcriptional regulator (Pdr1p) and basal drug efflux by the pumps (e.g. the multidrug transporter Pdr5p) that remains after transcriptional inactivation. The fungistatic triazole drugs will also be rendered fungicidal. Structural resolution of the target molecules will assist in silico aspects of the drug discovery process. Our expertise in structural biology, yeast genetics, molecular modeling, drug screening, compound synthesis and medicinal chemistry, plus yeast resources unique to New Zealand, will be used to probe transcriptional modulation and develop a novel fungicidal chemotherapy that will lead to important applications in medicine and agriculture.

Total Awarded: $730,435

Duration: 3

Host: University of Otago

Contact Person: Dr BC Monk

Panel: BMS

Project ID: 10-UOO-098


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Standard

Year Awarded: 2010

Title: Multiobjective network equilibria - From definition to algorithms

Recipient(s): Dr M Ehrgott | PI | The University of Auckland
Dr A Raith | AI | The University of Auckland
Dr JYT Wang | AI | The University of Auckland

Public Summary: We are surrounded by network structures. Everyone interacts with telecommunication, transportation and energy networks everyday. Mathematical models of these physical as well as many virtual networks representing the interactions between agents in an economy can be used to predict the behaviour of the agents in the networks and hence the performance of the networks. In this research, we are interested in equilibrium problems in networks. An equilibrium in a network is a state in which no agent has an incentive to change their own behaviour, because no such change results in an improvement of their situation. Existing theory assumes that agents use a single measure of cost or benefit to assess their situation, which is unrealistic. We investigate the more general and more realistic situation where cost and/or benefit is expressed through several incommensurate and conflicting objectives. Under this assumption, there exist multiple equilibria, and in our research we develop algorithms to find these multiple equilibria, study their mathematical properties, and their relevance in specific network types, thereby enriching the theoretical foundation of fields such as economics, transportation, supply chains, and finance.

Total Awarded: $508,696

Duration: 3

Host: The University of Auckland

Contact Person: Dr M Ehrgott

Panel: EIS

Project ID: 10-UOA-021


Fund Type: Marsden Fund

Category: Fast-Start

Year Awarded: 2017

Title: Multiple coincidences: Cuban medical cooperation in the Pacific

Recipient(s): Dr SJ McLennan | PI | Massey University Manawatu
Associate Professor R Huish | AI | Dalhousie University
Dr HM Leslie | AI | Massey Unversity Manawatu

Public Summary: Pacific Island countries (PICs) face considerable challenges in delivering health care. These challenges are currently being addressed by Cuba through an extensive health and medical training programme in the Pacific. This programme, based on South-South solidarity and the “multiple coincidences” between Cuba and PICs as small island states, is seen as a productive and sustainable model for health care in the region. There is already evidence of success, and the programme now includes trilateral aid from Australia and New Zealand. However, this is no ordinary medical aid programme: rather, it provides an example of development cooperation between countries of the global south, which draws on an anti-colonial approach to development. This research will firstly examine the ‘coincidences’ between Cuba and PICs in relation to health care and the impact of the Cuban programme on health in the region, and secondly it will explore the development implications of Cuban assistance to PICs, particularly the challenges it presents to the dominant aid paradigm. The research will advance our understanding of the impacts of Cuban medical cooperation, the interface between Cuban and Pacific approaches to health, and the potential of solidarity-based cooperation in a context dominated by neo-liberal aid approaches.

Total Awarded: $300,000

Duration: 3

Host: Massey University Manawatu

Contact Person: Dr SJ McLennan

Panel: SOC

Project ID: 17-MAU-064


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