Dr Guido is a senior research fellow at Auckland uni. Guido is working with Cure Kids in the field of neonatal physiology, following on the from the work of Professor Alastair Gunn.

Dr Chris McKinlay received his medical education at the University of Auckland, before specialising in paediatrics and neonatal paediatrics in Auckland and Melbourne. He was awarded a PhD in paediatrics from the University of Auckland in 2012, and was appointed Senior Lecturer at the Liggins Institute in 2014. Chris is a consultant neonatologist at Middlemore Hospital, and his research focuses on the early life origins of metabolic disease, developmental impairment and learning problems, and lung disease.

Jiney Jose obtained his MS and PhD degrees in Organic Chemistry from Texas A&M Univeristy, working with Prof. Kevin Burgess. His research involved the development of organic fluorescent probes and nanoparticles for cellular imaging studies. He was awarded a cancer prevention research institute of Texas (CPRIT) fellowship to pursue postdoctoral research with Prof. Eric V. Anslyn/ Prof. Kevin Dalby at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focused on developing tryptamine analogues for the treatment of breast cancer. He joined Auckland cancer society research centre in 2012 as a research fellow. He is an affiliate investigator at the Maurice Wilkins Centre for Molecular Biodiscovery at the University of Auckland.

He is currently involved in an immunotherapy project developing small molecules for the treatment of Leukaemia. He is also involved in the development and application of tumour targeting theranostic drug dye conjugates with brain penetrant properties for treatment of paediatric and adult brain cancers. His interest in cancer research is positively influenced by his interaction with his mentors, colleagues, and collaborators whom he had the opportunity to work with all these years. He is extremely grateful for all the support various funding agencies have contributed to his research over the years.

Dr Manisha is a senior lecture at the Auckland uni school of pharmacy. She is working with Cure Kids to develop a novel way of pain-free sedation for children.

Associate Professor Jo James' favourite organ is the placenta. This multi-talented organ acts as a life support system for every one of us during our time in utero by delivering nutrients and oxygen that are essential for growth. Its ability to do this successfully at the end of pregnancy, when fetal demand is greatest, is dependent on successful placental development in early pregnancy. A poorly functioning placenta is thought to be a major component of the disease process in many pregnancy disorders including preeclampsia, fetal growth restriction (FGR) and recurrent miscarriage. Together, these disorders affect 1 in 10 pregnancies. However, despite our absolute reliance on the placenta, we do not understand the basic biological processes that underpin placental formation, or why these may fail.

A/P James leads a research group focussed on the use of placental stem cells the placenta is built from (both trophoblast and villous core progenitors) to understand how changes in cell differentiation and function underpin poor placental growth and function. She also co-leads the Pregnancy Modelling Group (with A/P Alys Clark, Auckland Bioengineering Institute), which combines in vitro experiments, in vivo imaging data and in silico modelling approaches to develop ‘virtual pregnancy’ models to better understand how the anatomical differences seen in fetal growth restriction impact how blood flows to, around, and within the placenta, which in turn can affect how nutrients and oxygen reach baby. She is working to use this understanding to help improve our ability to predict which pregnancies are at risk of fetal growth restriction, and identify ways to therapeutically improve placental function in at risk pregnancies.

Nicola has research interest in the Department of Psychological Medicine is on the mental health of young people and support through digital interventions. She overseas ongoing innovation for Aroha, the chatbot developed to help young people manage stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nicola also co leads a project on an app called Sleep Ninja, to support sleep and mental wellbeing for rangatahi.

Nicola completed a PhD in the Department of Anaesthesiology, The University of Auckland in 2018. She investigated the effects of general anaesthesia on the mammalian (mouse) circadian clock and on human circadian rhythms and sleep. She has a strong background in sleep and circadian biology, and is experienced in basic science and clinical trials.

Nicola has a special interest in the relationship between sleep and the circadian clock and mental health. her research is particularly focused on a research trajectory to understand clock mediated development and onset of mental illness in young people and in elucidating causal mechanisms and effective sleep and clock therapeutic interventions that are dynamic and suited to young people in Aotearoa.

Professor Barbara Galland heads the Paediatric Sleep Research Group. Her research interests include studying the effects of sleep and breathing disorders in children and adolescents on behaviour, cognition, and academic performance. She also has an interest in the role sleep plays in overweight and obesity, sleep-related disturbances in children with type 1 diabetes, and the biological mechanisms underpinning Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI).

Nicholas is a researcher on the Big Data team within the Better Start National Science Challenge focusing on mental health research for children and young people. He is also a PhD candidate where his research focuses on Autism Spectrum Disorder using big data. His other research interests include health economics and sports analytics.

Dr Jennifer Hollywood completed her PhD in 2013 at University College Cork, Ireland where she used gene editing tools such as zinc finger nucleases and CRISPR together with donor repair plasmids as a gene therapy strategy to correct the most common cystic fibrosis causing-mutations.

In December 2014, she joined Associate Professor Alan Davidson’s lab at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Here, Dr Hollywood developed the human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell model of cystinosis, with the goal to find alternative treatments for cystinosis.

Cystinosis is a rare genetic disease for which there is no cure. Despite treatment, patients will require a kidney transplant before they reach 20 years of age. Using CRISPR, Dr Hollywood generated cystinotic iPS cell lines and has contributed to the recent protocol from the Davidson lab for generating human kidney organoids from iPS cells. Their work has shown that the iPS cell/organoid platform can be used to model aspects of cystinosis and has identified a new combination treatment that may have therapeutic value in the treatment of this disease. This combination treatment is now being tested in a suitable preclinical model.

Her specialist expertise is in mental health, nursing, social determinants of health, and health services for young Māori. Much of her research has focused on depression, suicide, and delivery of equity in mental health for young Māori. Prof Clark also holds a range of governance and advisory roles related to young people, Māori health, and mental health. Since 1998 Prof Clark has been the Principal Investigator and Co-Lead of the Youth2000 series of national surveys on youth health and wellbeing. She is a founding member of the national Adolescent Health Research Group. In 2022, Prof Clark joined Cure Kids' Medical & Scientific Advisory Committee.

Professor Stephen Robertson has been the Cure Kids Chair of Paediatric Genetics at the University of Otago since 2002.

Prof Robertson has gained international acclaim in his field for his expertise in the field of genetic mutations, specifically those affecting the skeleton and the brain.

He completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Otago, Dunedin, where he would eventually return more than a decade later. During his absence from Otago, he held the prestigious Nuffield Scholarship at the Institute of Molecular Medicine at the world-leading Oxford University. Also specialising in paediatrics, Prof Robertson is a clinician who sees children with varying degrees of malformation on a regular basis.

Prof Robertson’s work has seen him and his team discover genes that are implicated in a number of genetic disorders. These include familial disorders where a number of members of a particular family are affected with life-affecting, even fatal, conditions. One such story involved Robertson working tirelessly with a whanau in the far North who were inexplicably losing children soon after birth. After a long journey, he identified the gene which was responsible for the babies’ deaths enabling a diagnosis to be made. This was also fundamental in giving the whanau information regarding future offspring as well as the peace of mind of knowing what happened to their loved ones.

“What we’re about is helping people understand and live with disability as best they can, and part of that’s through giving information about what causes it.”

Prof Robertson and his team continue to work to characterise and better understand rare, yet significant, diseases that affect a number of New Zealand children.

Professor Dalziel is the Cure Kids Chair of Child Health Research.

He is a Professor in the School of Medicine’s Departments of Surgery and Paediatrics, Director of Emergency Medicine Research and a Paediatric Emergency Medicine Specialist, Children’s Emergency Department, at Starship Children’s Hospital. He is also the current chair of the Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (PREDICT, Australasia’s paediatric emergency medicine research network) and Vice-Chair of the Paediatric Emergency Research Network (PERN), a collaboration of the six major international paediatric emergency medicine research networks.

Originally from Hawke’s Bay, he trained at the Universities of Otago and Auckland, returning to New Zealand over a decade ago following a fellowship post at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London. Professor Dalziel’s research is strongly aligned to his everyday clinical practice as a Paediatric Emergency Medicine Specialist. It focuses on both medical emergencies, such as status epilepticus (the most common paediatric neurological emergency), and common paediatric conditions, such as asthma and bronchiolitis (the most common reason for infants to be admitted to hospital). Professor Dalziel has received numerous local and international awards for mentoring and research excellence. He is actively involved in the leadership of a number of international research networks which directly address important questions related to the acute care of children.

Professor Andrew Day holds the chair of Paediatric Research at University of Otago, Christchurch.

Professor Andrew Day undertook his medical training at University of Otago, New Zealand. After his initial paediatric training in Christchurch, he completed clinical and research fellowship training at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada. In 2000, he took up appointments at the University of New South Wales and Sydney Children’s Hospital in Sydney, Australia. Professor Day then returned to NZ in 2009 to take an academic position at University of Otago (Christchurch) and a clinical position (Paediatric Gastroenterologist) at Christchurch Hospital. In 2017, Prof Day was appointed as Cure Kids Chair of Paediatric Research in Christchurch.

The overall objectives of Prof Day’s ongoing research activities are to delineate and define aspects of gastrointestinal inflammation, especially in the context of inflammatory bowel disease, and to define how interactions occurring at the gastrointestinal epithelial border between the host and the environment affect disease pathogenesis and manifestations. This has focused especially upon epithelial responses to inflammatory stimuli, host innate immune responses and to modulation of these responses with therapeutic intervention, providing clinical relevance to laboratory activities. He has an ongoing active and productive research program, with local and international collaborations, leading to more than 220 peer-reviewed publications and numerous other presentations or publications.