Otago scholars honoured by Royal Society

Four eminent Otago academics recently achieved the distinction of being elected Fellows of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

They are Professor Sally Brooker (Chemistry), Emeritus Professor James Flynn (Political Studies), Professor Allan Herbison (Physiology) and Professor Clive Ronson (Microbiology & Immunology).

Professor Sally Brooker
Sally Brooker, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Otago, is a leading expert in the rational design and synthesis of libraries of acyclic and macrocyclic ligands, incorporating bridging groups which facilitate communication between paramagnetic metal ions. The resulting metal compounds set a precedent in combining the spin-crossover phenomenon with magnetic exchange, and are important for the development of candidates for incorporation into nano-devices for information storage and processing, as they may be switched between two or more different electronic states.

The ground-breaking work of her research group has featured six times on the front covers of top journals.

Professor James Flynn
James Flynn, Emeritus Professor of Political Studies at Otago, is regarded as one of the outstanding contributors to the study of human intelligence in the past 50 years.

His research in the 1970s and 1980s refuted arguments made about a significant genetic influence in differences in IQ between races, and confirmed environment as a more significant influence of these differences. His international reputation was later cemented with his discovery that scores on most standard IQ tests showed astonishingly large increases over the course of the 20th Century; this is now known as the 'Flynn Effect'.

Professor Flynn was selected as the Distinguished Scientist for 2007 by the International Society for Intelligence Research.

Professor Herbison
Allan Herbison, Professorial Research Fellow in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience at Otago, is an outstanding scientist in the field of reproductive neurobiology.

His pioneering work in developing transgenic methodologies for examining the molecular and cellular properties of specific neuronal cell types has led to a paradigm shift in the understanding of the neural control of fertility. The key neurons responsible for controlling fertility are the gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) neurons. Through the ingenious use of promoter transgenic strategies, Professor Herbison has developed technologies that have enabled the first molecular and cellular investigations of GnRH neurons to be undertaken, and has become a leader in this field.

Professor Clive Ronson
Clive Ronson, Professor of Genetics at Otago, is an international authority on Rhizobium genetics. Rhizobium are soil bacteria that fix nitrogen after becoming established inside root nodules of legumes.

He discovered the first two-component regulatory system in bacteria. These systems, in which an environmental stimulus is sensed by one component in the bacterial cell and passed on to a second component, are now recognised as the major way in which bacteria sense their environments. More recently, Professor Ronson and his students discovered and made an extended study of 'symbiosis islands' in Rhizobium, demonstrating the horizontal transfer of these genetic elements during the evolution of plant-bacterial symbiotic systems.