“I always knew I wanted to come to Otago – wanted to do Med but I didn't understand how the Health Science First Year thing worked really. I came to Hands-On Science at the start of my year 13 and found out heaps about getting into the professional courses and how HSFY feeds into all of those.
So when I got here, I did the Health Sci First Year and then did Genetics, Pharmacology and Biochemistry in my second year. I just loved it! Everyone had emphasised that I needed to keep my options open so I made sure I did that. When I finished second year I was offered a place in Honours for biochem or Pharmacology and I decided on Pharmacology.
I'm working on a PhD at the moment with a research company called Mesynthes and the Wellington school of Medicine – working on something that aids healing and reduces scarring in surface wounds. We take the sub mucosa of a sheep's fore-stomach – the part that's made up of collagen, and we strip the cells out. That leaves the collagen and the elasten as a structure for cells to grow into. We freeze-dry it and it looks a bit like rough paper towel really!
If you apply this to a surface wound the cells that grow populate it really quickly as they have this scaffolding to grow on; this reduces scarring and sometimes there's no scarring at all. Because it's a natural product the body doesn't reject it, it gradually breaks down and is removed from the body by natural body function. This is seriously cool stuff… my research has contributed to getting FDA approval in the States and it's been used for patent applications.
Mesynthes has covered all my research costs – providing a lab to work in and all the things I've needed to get the work done. I had funding from the Health Research Council (it was a Māori career development grant) and that covered my pay while I was doing the research. Now I'm pretty much set up to go into academic research or into industrial research. The world is my oyster! Coming from Invercargill, I know a bit about oysters …”