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Over The Horizon

Oxford Fellowship for Otago Biochemist

Otago University postgraduate Andrew Shelling is off to Oxford, having won the prestigious Oxford Nuffield Medical Fellowship. He is to undertake a three-year study into the genetic analysis of tumour progression in ovarian cancer.

"My job will be to identify the genes that have been deleted or mutated," Shelling says. He hopes to be able to work out what happens when with regard to tumour development, from pre-cancerous to the full-blown tumour. The aim is to identify ovarian cancer at its earliest stages for quick treatment.

"The ovary goes from the size of a walnut to the size of a softball," he remarks. "It can be very hard to tell what stage it is at."

It's not an area he has worked in previously, and the chance to do ground-breaking research at Oxford's Institute of Molecular Medicine is appealing. The postgraduate student came to biochemistry after completing a degree in physical education.

"I thought I'd be a better PE teacher by taking a science paper or two," he recalls. He took to biochemistry, and a long five-year PhD programme followed his BSc Honours. His original doctoral work was scooped halfway through by researchers overseas, but Shelling says that gave him the impetus to develop some new ideas and approaches. Shelling's PhD in gene therapy attracted international attention. He looked at using viruses to attack tissue affected by disease, developing a viral vector to go after specific genetic sites.

Being in a department with 36 PhD students provided a strongly supportive environment, Shelling says. The typical underfunding in New Zealand laboratories also provides fantastic training, he notes ruefully, where researchers learn a great deal, from building their own equipment to designing basic strategies.

Shelling laments the lack of role models for young people in science, recalling a difficult decision he had to make a few years ago whether to go into international sports or science.

"Where are the role models for science?" he says. If he were choosing today, he believes he'd be likely to be working in an orchard in his home town of Nelson, rather than going to university. Shelling is also concerned at the numbers of graduates he has seen heading overseas. While he is one of them, the terms of the Nuffield Fellowship require him to come back to New Zealand to continue his work.