A team whose discovery has boosted New Zealand agriculture by a potential $3.6 billion has taken out the top award at the prestigious 2024 Prime Minister's Science Prizes.
Other winners include a researcher studying anxiety, an innovative science teacher, a high school student investigating stormwater treatment, and a virologist at the forefront of Covid-19 communication efforts.
Awardees received their prizes at a ceremony held at Parliament on Tuesday 6 May, presented by Prime Minister the Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, and Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology Hon Dr Shane Reti.
The Endophyte Discovery Team at AgResearch won the main Prime Minister's science prize. Photo: Royal Society of New Zealand
Fungal discovery delivers big benefits to agriculture
The Prime Minister's Te Puiaki Pūtaiao Matua a Te Pirimia Science Prize went to Dr Linda Johnson and the Endophyte Discovery Team at AgResearch.
The team's investigations over four decades led to the discovery of fungal strains that make ryegrass resistant to insect pests without adverse impacts for livestock.
These helpful fungi are called endophytes, found living inside ryegrass - the predominant grass in New Zealand pastures.
When ryegrass was first introduced to New Zealand it travelled here with its existing endophytes, but this team discovered that they were producing toxins detrimental to grazing livestock. So they went searching for others.
Dr David Hume and Dr Linda Johnson working in the AgResearch greenhouse. Photo: Royal Society of New Zealand
The first new endophyte strain the team found and developed, known as AR1, was commercialised in 2000 through New Zealand seed companies by AgResearch subsidiary Grasslanz technology.
The gamechanger, however, was ryegrass seed with the endophyte AR37, which was launched at Fieldays in 2006. AR37 provides protection for the grass from five of the six main insects pests and was licensed by Grasslanz to PGG Wrightson and NZ Agriseeds.
AR37 leads to increased grass yields and gains in milk and meat production, extensive trials have shown. It also appears to help the ryegrass in drought conditions.
It was rapidly adopted by New Zealand pasture farmers, the majority of which now buy seed with this improved endophyte.
Dr David Hume of the Endophyte Discovery Team at AgResearch. Photo: Royal Society of New Zealand
While it can sometimes cause 'ryegrass staggers' in sheep - a neuromuscular disorder where animals stagger around, as if drunk - this happens less with AR37 than for other endophytes, and has not been seen in dairy cows.
In 2017, ACIL Allen Consulting prepared a case study on AR37 for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. They estimated the research and development programme that delivered this innovation cost $12 million. According to Grasslanz Chief Technical Officer Dr John Caradus, this consulting firm also gave an estimate of the economic value AR37 would contribute: $3.6 billion to the New Zealand economy over 20 years.
Caradus says this is because New Zealand has excelled in both the research and the delivery of new endophytes.
"Many teams have studied endophytes globally, but it was the New Zealand team that were the first to understand the chemistry of endophytes in the pasture and then identify useful strains."
Looking to the future, the team is interested in developing novel endophytes using gene editing, with the upcoming changes to gene technology regulation in New Zealand likely to reduce barriers around this. They are also turning their attention, and expertise, to endophytes that might help cereal crops.
Dr Linda Johnson of the Endophyte Discovery Team at AgResearch. Photo: Royal Society of New Zealand
Learn more in this recent nine-to-noon interview with Grasslanz's Dr John Caradus, and listen to the Saturday Morning programme on 10 May for an interview with the Endophyte Discovery team.
Towards better understanding of anxiety
Dr Olivia Harrison from the University of Otago was awarded the Prime Minister's Te Puiaki Kaipūtaiao Maea MacDiarmid Emerging Scientist Prize for her research into anxiety.
Harrison and her team are researching what happens to people's brains and bodies when they experience anxiety - including the connection and perception between the two.
They are also investigating how different treatments - such as medication, exercise or stretching - can impact this brain-body connection, and can help people manage their anxiety.
Dr Olivia Harrison uses breathing effort and perception to understand how the brain-body connection changes during anxiety. Photo: Royal Society of New Zealand
An estimated one in four New Zealanders will experience anxiety disorder across their lifetime, and levels of anxiety, especially in young people, are rising.
Learn more in the Our Changing World episode 'Anxiety and the brain-body connection'.
From Covid-19 to bird flu - communicating about viruses
Professor Jemma Geoghegan never set out to be a science communicator. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, her expertise in virus evolution and genome sequencing technologies became important to share.
This work has now earned her the Prime Minister's Te Puiaki Whakapā Pūtaiao Science Communication Prize.
Dr Jemma Geoghegan of the University of Otago wins the Science Communication prize. Photo: Royal Society of New Zealand
While involved in the Covid-19 research response herself, Geoghegan became an important contact for the media and policymakers. She stopped counting once she hit more than 200 interviews.
In her University of Otago lab, she and her team study the huge number of viruses that exist in wildlife. They're trying to understand what factors drive a small proportion of these to become pathogenic, or disease causing.
In the last few years Geoghegan has been keeping a watchful eye on, and communicating about, highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1. This bird flu strain has been spreading around the globe and jumping to new hosts.
Listen to the audio to hear her discuss science communication with Our Changing World's Claire Concannon.
Making science a part of real life
Dr Aidan Kiely, a science teacher and Head of Science at Aorere College in South Auckland, has won the Prime Minister's Te Puiaki Kaiwhakaako Pūtaiao Science Teacher Prize.
Dr Aidan Kiely, a science teacher and Head of Science at Aorere College in South Auckland, has won the Science Teacher prize. Photo: Royal Society of New Zealand
Having begun his career in molecular biology research, Kiely says he has always been passionate about sharing scientific ideas with others.
At Aorere College he enables science projects that have real-life applications, such as working with engineers to install sensors in beehives and being part of restoring a local stream.
Over the past six years, Kiely and his students have planted approximately 4,000 native plants along the banks of the stream.
He says this project has made a strong connection for his students between science being a thing they 'know' and a thing they 'do'.
A plant-fungus combination to soak up stormwater pollutants
Rena Misra, winner of the Prime Minister's Te Puiaki Kaipūtaiao Ānamata Future Scientist Prize, was recognised for her innovative investigation into the potential of plant-fungus teamwork.
Rena Misra, a student at Epsom Girls Grammar school in Auckland, has won the Future Scientist prize for her research on removing pollutants from stormwater using plants. Photo: Royal Society of New Zealand
A Year 13 student at Epsom Girls' Grammar School in Auckland, Misra built a hydroponic system in her study room to investigate a way to help remove pollutants from stormwater.
She used a type of fungus to enhance the efficiency of plants filtering contaminants out of water. Using her homemade system, she showed that plants inoculated with the fungus were bigger and had longer root systems. Fungus-bearing plants were able to remove more copper from the water over three days than those that did not have the fungus.
Future scientist prize winner Rena Misra set up a hydrophonic system to test how a plant-fungus combination might work to remove water contaminants. Photo: Royal Society of New Zealand
Listen to the audio to hear Misra talk to Our Changing World's Claire Concannon about the research, and her plans for the future.
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