REPRODUCTION OF ANIMALS

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27592, 24 February 1955, Page 10

REPRODUCTION OF ANIMALS

NUFFIELD RESEARCH AWARDS

STUDIES BY FOUR N.Z. SCIENTISTS

(New Zealand Press Association) __ _,. DUNEDIN, February 22. Nuffield Foundation research awards have been granted to four research workers who are to carry out research on endocrine problems, with special reference to reproduction, lactation, and the constituents of milk, and on the symbiotic association of New Zealand plants. The successful applicants are Dr. H. D. Purves, Mr D. S. Hart, Dr. Greta B. Cone, and Dr. R. D. Batt. In 1954 the Nuffield Foundation advised its New Zealand advisory committee that it had set aside £5OOO a year for five years to encourage ana support fundamental research in this country. The advisory committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Charles Hercus, Dean of the Otago Medical School, decided to employ these funds to exploit some of New Zealand’s peculiar resources for research, and invited applications for research grants from the university colleges, the specialist schools, and research institutions. / Dr. Purves and Mr Hart have been made a joint award for the study of endocrine problems, with particular reference to reproduction and lactation. Dr. Purves, who is head of the endocrinology department of the Medical School, is an internationallyrecogmsed authority on the hormones of the pituitary gland. Mr D. S? Hart, lecturer in animal husbandry at Canterbury Agricultural College, is a graduate of the Agricultural School at Cambridge University. In view of the importance of the sheep industry to New Zealand, Mr Hart’s studies on reproduction and lactation are now to be extended to this species. ~ Dr. Cone will carry out research at the Cawthron Institute, Nelson, on the symbiotic association of New Zealand native Plants, with special reference totoeir nutrition and growth on poor soils. Dr. Cone had a distinguished academic career at the University of Otago, and graduated with first-class honours in botany in 1932. She continued her studies in England with signal success. Since returning to New Zealand Dr. Cone has pursued her researches in native plant nutrition.

Dr- Batt, who is a senior lecturer in the department of biochemistry at the University of Otago,, is a graduate ot hoth Otago and Oxford Universities. He has published many original papers , on both chemical and biochemical subjects. Since his return to New Zealand from Oxford he has commenced a detailed study of the minor chemical constituents of milk. It is to facilitate and expedite this imP® rt , a nt study of a primary product vital to New Zealand’s economy that this award ha§ been made.