Ten postgraduate students in the Department of Biochemistry have been awarded the Mike Murphy and Rob Smith Scholarships for 2021.
The scholarships were established by the Department of Biochemistry to honour Professor Mike Murphy, a member of the Department from 1992-2001, whose fundamental research, with Professor Rob Smith from the Chemistry Department, into mitochondrial function led to the invention of novel probes and therapeutics that are the basis of Antipodean Pharmaceuticals.
Caty Wylie, Baeli Spedding-Devereaux, Georgina Mashlan, Milly Morice, Nicole Thomson, Anita Lu, Hope Williams, Rhiannon Adams, Annelise Lockie, and Flynn Kelly share the 2021 award.
Caty is studying for an MSc in Biochemistry, working on sex determination in kiwifruit; Baeli is studying pollen development for a BSc(Hons); Georgina is in the second year of an MSc, working on antibiotic resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa; Milly is doing a BSc(Hons) in Genetics, looking at why Māori and Pacific Islands people have an increased risk of developing type II diabetes; Nicole is working on developing non-heading ryegrass for her MSc; Anita's BSc(Hons) is on the regulation of a protein involved in regulating immune responses; Hope is looking at the biogenesis and repair of photosystem II for her BSc(Hons), Rhiannon's MSc is all about investigating the activity of certain whey proteins in sheep and deer milk; Annelise's degree is a Bachelor of Biomedical Science (BBiomedSc) looking at mitochondrial function in a type of cell responsible for platelet production, hence also blood clotting; and Flynn is studying early embryonic development in a parasitic wasp for his BSc(Hons) project.
