Otago projects on glowworms, natural hazards, heart attacks and reconstructive surgery have all received funding from the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment.
They are among 46 early-stage research initiatives which received funding in the 2025 Endeavour Fund – Smart Ideas investment round, announced today.
Each project, worth about $1 million, has been selected for its potential to deliver significant scientific, environmental, and economic benefits for Aotearoa New Zealand.
Professor Kurt Krause, of the Department of Biochemistry, is leading a project which aims to harness the unique glow of the New Zealand glowworm or titiwai, as a biotechnology tool.
Professor Tony Moore, of the School of Surveying, will be looking at climate stress-testing to improve the resilience of New Zealand's real-estate market in the face of natural hazards.
Professor Chris Pemberton, of the Department of Medicine, Christchurch, is leading a project which aims to create a point-of-care blood testing device designed to help predict cardiovascular disease risk.
And Professor Tim Woodfield, of Department of Orthopaedic Surgery & Musculoskeletal Medicine, Christchurch, is aiming to revolutionise the current medical aesthetic and tissue grafting industry by developing a new light-based medical device.
Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research & Enterprise) Dr Martin Gagnon congratulates the recipients on their funding.
"Each of these projects is uniquely placed to be of significant benefit to not only the economy, but everyday New Zealanders. I look forward to following them with interest."
The projects
Professor Kurt Krause, Department of Biochemistry
Harnessing the glow from New Zealand's glowworm as a unique biotechnology tool
Professor Kurt Krause
The New Zealand glowworm or titiwai (Arachnocampa luminosa) is an indigenous organism with unique bioluminescent properties. In this proposal we will complete the identification of the biochemical basis of the unique 'glow' of the titiwai. We will work to understand and enhance these bioluminescent properties in the laboratory and explore the use of this bioluminescent system as a biotechnology tool in biomedical and biological investigations. Biotechnology tools based on luminescence can be used to track disease causing microorganisms or locate abnormal cells, like cancer cells, in organs and tissues. If successful, this product will be marketed worldwide but made in New Zealand, ensuring that any economic gains return to Aotearoa. We are partnering in this venture with mana whenua to ensure that titiwai, which are taonga, are protected and sustained, and that treaty obligations regarding the development of titiwai bioluminescence as a biotechnology tool are met. Fundamental knowledge of a unique bioluminescent system will result from this work and set the stage for its continued use for the development of new biotechnological applications while ensuring broad benefit to New Zealand from this work and careful protection (kaitiakitanga) of the titiwai.
Professor Tony Moore, School of Surveying
Financial stability and improved policies through spatio-temporal hybrid climate stress tests
Professor Tony Moore
Flooding is one of Aotearoa New Zealand's costliest natural hazards, and risk of flooding will increase with climate change to 2100 and beyond. To prepare for this, we need better ways of predicting and understanding the impacts and implications of elevated flooding risk to households, insurers/banks, and the broader economy. We can achieve this with climate stress-testing across geographic space and through time. Our project is to integrate bottom-up and top-down approaches of stress-testing the resilience of New Zealand's real-estate market and financial system to climate-related flooding risks, such that behavioural, macro-economic, and social criteria can be incorporated to expand the range of influences beyond what have previously been considered. This hybridised model will be built upon the foundational blue-skies research in the Marsden funded STRAND project (2021-2024), leveraging and expanding the skilled and highly multidisciplinary research team from five research institutions and numerous research partners (including the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, CoreLogic) and world-leading experts. Specifically, this expanded team will improve the physical multi-hazard analysis using site-specific climate and groundwater datasets; factor behavioural responses of market participants (homeowners, banking and insurance firms) and explore how this may affect the pricing of flooding risk; develop better ways to estimate risks to mortgage lending including repayment and defaults; capture the wider effects of flooding risk on the broader economy and financial stability; and go beyond financial impacts and consider social, physical, and cultural factors with a spatial multi-criteria risk index. Successfully achieving these goals will result in more accurate, applicable, and relevant climate risk estimates that better serve the needs of climate risk pricing and adaptation policies.
Professor Chris Pemberton, Department of Medicine, Christchurch
Cardiac Point-of-Care Diagnostics: Expanding the NZ Medtech Industry
Professor Chris Pemberton
Accurately diagnosing whether chest pain is due to a heart problem relies heavily on measuring specific proteins in the blood. However, current scientific methods and real-world practices face two significant challenges. First, while effective tests exist to confirm or rule out a heart attack, there is a lack of tests to identify serious underlying heart disease causing chest pain, which could help predict risk of heart attack in the near future. Second, many small town and medium-sized hospitals lack access to the necessary equipment for blood testing, and remote areas often have no testing facilities at all. This project leverages advanced experimental science, innovative discovery methods, and cutting-edge development and manufacturing processes to create a point-of-care (POC) blood testing device designed to address these needs. First, we employed advanced biochemistry and experimental cardiology techniques to discover two novel proteins carried in the blood that could accurately assess a person's risk of serious heart disease and future heart attack. Second, we developed a prototype POC device capable of measuring these proteins from a very small blood sample, potentially enabling on-site testing in small towns and remote areas. This project represents a significant 'science stretch' by integrating the discovery of novel blood markers to predict cardiovascular disease risk with New Zealand-based design, manufacturing, and refinement of prototype POC devices to serve unmet needs in healthcare, diagnostics and commercial markets.
Professor Tim Woodfield, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery & Musculoskeletal Medicine, Christchurch
Novel light-based materials and injection device for tissue grafting
Professor Tim Woodfield
Injectable tissue fillers are popularly adopted for cosmetic and reconstructive surgery, with more than 4 million procedures occurring in the US alone in 2021. The process involves injecting tissue-like materials into the targeted site with the aim of contouring tissue under the skin or repairing damage. This project will develop an entirely new light-based medical device that will revolutionise the current medical aesthetic and tissue grafting industry by addressing a global unmet need in plastic and reconstructive surgery – controlling retention and shaping of tissue fillers and tissue grafts.
This project will deliver new manufacturing capabilities to Aotearoa New Zealand's rapidly growing medical device industry, by both expanding current product portfolios, and creating new light-based surgical instrument and biomaterials manufacturing capacity. The global medical aesthetics market, valued at US$5.1 billion, is projected to grow by 11 per cent annually through to 2031, reaching US$14.4 billion. The technology developed in this project will open a new sector in the medical device and medical aesthetics markets and disrupt the use of traditional implants for soft tissue augmentation, enabling fast return on investment. Our light-based technology is expected to drastically reduce the number of repeated reconstruction surgeries that are currently performed (e.g. breast cancer surgeries) and support tissue regeneration. As a direct consequence of reducing reoperation rates, our technology will improve outcomes for patients, reduce healthcare costs and halve the amount of waste produced from surgery. A multidisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians from the University of Otago, Victoria University of Wellington, as well as local medical- device industry and international collaborators has been assembled and is ready to tackle this problem.
