Wellington Girls' College students excel in the 2024 NZIC titration competition

In June, 26 Year 12 students participated in the 2024 NZIC Titration Competition held in SCPS at Victoria University of Wellington. The winners of this event were:

1. Rigee Sze, Wellington Girls' College
2. Katie Smith, Wellington Girls' College
3. Cody Griffiths

Notably, Rigee Sze's result differed by only 0.01 mg/100mL from the official measurement.

The event was made possible by Ms Susanna Leung's preparation efforts, with sponsorship from the Royal Society of Chemistry and support from VUW Science Faculty and School of Chemical and Physical Sciences. We thank the teachers for bringing their students to the competition.

Wellington High School takes the gold in the closely fought 2024 NZIC High School Quiz

In June, 87 Year 12 and 13 students from 10 Wellington schools participated in the 2024 NZIC High School Quiz hosted in the hub by Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington. The winners from the quiz were:

• 1^st: The Archers (Marrisa, Archer, Alex and Rune) with 74% from Wellington High School
• 2^nd: Antimony Carbide (Thomas, James, Thynn and Tarkon) with 73% from St Bernard’s College in Lower Hutt
• 3^rd: Nikhilson (Mitchell, Mingston, Vishwaa, Allan) with 72% from Wellington College

The jostle for third place was particularly heated as the team WCNikhil, also from Wellington College, ended the quiz in a tie with Nikhilson. In the end Nikhilson correctly answered a tie-break question to earn their place on the podium.

This event was made possible through the support of the VUW Faculty of Science, School of Chemical and Physical Sciences and the NZIC Wellington branch. We would like to thank those who helped with the quiz marking and organisation including Amy Foster, James Wood, Andrea O’reilly, Ela Crowe, Martyn Coles and Robin Fulton. We would also like to thank all the teachers for bringing their students to the competition.

Ferrier Research Institute

PhD completions

Congratulations to Sarah Draper, who last month successfully defended her PhD thesis on nanoparticle vaccine delivery for malaria. Sarah was supervised by Gavin Painter and Margaret Brimble (UoA) and, after a well-earned break, is now involved across multiple projects in the RNA development platform.

Funding successes

Congratulations to Olga Zubkova on the award of an HRC Explorer grant for the project, “Scalable heparan sulfate mimetics as dual-mechanism antiviral agents”. Together with collaborators John Taylor (UoA), Natalie Natzler (UoA) and Anne La Flamme (VUW), the multidisciplinary team will explore the use of heparan sulfate mimetics to both capture and neutralise viruses, as well as inhibit the enzyme heparanase to reduce inflammation associated with viral infection.

Together with collaborator Tyler Grove of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (NY, USA), Lawrence Harris has secured an NIH-funded R01 grant to investigate the mechanistic role of ddhCTP, a naturally occurring antiviral nucleotide, in innate immunity, inflammation and other cellular processes. The 5-year research program will explore previously uncharacterised metabolic interactions, which will inform future development of novel therapeutics. 

Outreach

In July the Ferrier Research Institute hosted 41 young women at the Gracefield Innovation Quarter as part of the 2024 Innovative Young Minds (IYM) programme for Year 11 and 12 students. Thanks to Amy Foster and Mary Goodwin for organising the outreach day, as well as staff who led a hands-on aspirin synthesis lab and luminol demonstration, shared their research and discussed STEMM study and career pathways with the enthusiastic students.