Dr Megan Leask working with zebrafish to better understand the genetics of gout.
An innovative genomic approach could transform the treatment of inherited diseases like gout that target the unique genetics of Māori and Pacific people.
Otago School of Biomedical Sciences Lecturer Dr Megan Leask (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe) was granted $1.2 million by the Health Research Council (HRC) earlier in 2024 to identify genetics that can treat and prevent gout and other metabolic diseases.
Megan is excited to get support for the project because of its potential to link innovative global research with Māori and Pacific communities.
Precision medicine is a genomic-based approach. Healthcare informed by an individual’s genetics bypasses the traditional one-size-fits-all treatment, so health professionals can match the best care to each person.
“Given that cardiometabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes, chronic kidney disease and gout are increasing worldwide at an alarming rate, it’s a great place to start applying these new genomic technologies,” she says.
Her team will be identifying unique genetic factors that are functional in metabolic health and that are specific to Māori and Pacific people.
Overseas, precision medicine guided by genomics is already improving quality of life and reducing medical costs.
Aotearoa New Zealand is starting to build precision medicine capability but genetic data from Māori and Pacific peoples is critical for precision medicine to actually work in our country, Megan says.
“It’s critical to have genetic data from all populations. I want to be part of the process to make sure Māori and Pacific peoples are represented and benefit from new medical advances, and in doing so, help break down existing health care inequities.”
“Without this data, genetic-based gout treatment will not be available to all New Zealanders.”
Megan’s research in human genetics was kick-started by an HRC Explorer grant in 2015, awarded to Professor Julia Horsfield, in the Department of Pathology, with gout researcher Professor Tony Merriman, in the Department of Biochemistry.
Her role in the project was to study how disease-associated DNA variants control the expression of genes involved in metabolic disease using zebrafish as a model.
In 2018, Megan began her second post-doctoral position, in the Merriman laboratory, supported by a Lottery Health post-doctoral fellowship, gaining expertise in complex disease and association studies.
At the end of 2018 she received an HRC Māori Career Development Award. which focused on identifying Māori and Pacific genetic variants, and in 2020 a further HRC Emerging Research First Grant looking at function linked to these variants.
Megan has spent the last three years continuing her work with Polynesian genetics and gout at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA, where Professor Merriman is now based.
While living and working in the States was a challenge, it was also a fantastic learning experience, she says.
“It helped me to form a strong basis for working with genetic datasets.”
Back in Aotearoa with her young family in 2023, Megan built on those successes, further winning a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship and a Marsden Fast Start grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Aparangi.
Megan is now based in Otago’s Department of Physiology. The Leask Lab is working on the genetics of complex disease with expertise in gout, chronic kidney disease and serum urate control, and a focus on Māori and Pacific genetics, using the zebrafish model she first worked with in her postdoctoral studies.
Professor Julia Horsfield, who has been an important mentor in Megan’s journey, says the HRC Explorer grant laid the foundations, creating the opportunity to develop a new research area and leading to national and international collaborations.
This relatively modest investment from the HRC established a new research kaupapa and launched the career of a young Māori researcher, highlighting the long-term benefits of investing in scientists to develop new, “risky” avenues of research, Julia says.
“The main objective of an HRC Explorer grant is to fund potentially transformative research with long-term benefit to Aotearoa. But investment is so much more than just funding a particular research outcome, it underpins capability development.
“And 10 years down the track we have a great example in Megan of the gains made by single funded event demonstrating the impact that an HRC Explorer grant can have in the long term”.
Kōrero by Claire Grant, Communications Advisor, School of Biomedical Sciences