Filter Stories by Type
Chemistry bonds with commerce
The publication of chemical research carried out with and for New Zealand companies in prestigious, peer-reviewed international journals reflects IRL’s wide range of industrial interactions and the world-leading quality of their work.
The world-class research IRL chemists conduct with and for industry partners is in the spotlight with the recent publication of scientific papers in a range of prestigious international journals.
These include research that has identified high levels of potentially beneficial compounds in Zespri Gold® kiwifuit; the characterisation of a non-toxic compound that boosts anti-tumour immunity; and the isolation of carbohydrate compounds in honey with wound-healing properties.
The kiwifruit research, published in the journal Carbohydrate Polymers1, found that Zespri Gold® fruit had a higher proportion of compounds called hemicellulosic polysaccharides, which break down more easily in the gut.
Carbohydrate Polymers is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to research into carbohydrate polymers that have current or potential industrial applications.
The IRL team responsible for the research is now part of a wider collaboration linking changes to the polysaccharides during digestion to possible beneficial health outcomes.
The honey research, which IRL carried out in conjunction with Plant & Food Research and Massey University, showed that different varieties of New Zealand honey appear to trigger different immune responses in the body, and was published in Food Chemistry2, an international, peer-reviewed publication that reports on the chemistry and biochemistry of foods and raw materials.
Natural products company Comvita, which funded the research, says the research provides the tools for understanding why honey stimulates the healing of stalled wounds.
Finally, research characterising a non-toxic vaccine adjuvant known as MIS-416 – which may boost immunity against tumours – was carried out in collaboration with Auckland-based company Innate Therapeutics and appeared in the journal Vaccine3.
Dr Richard Furneaux, who heads IRL’s world-leading Carbohydrate Chemistry group, says the publication of work carried out with and for New Zealand companies in prestigious, peer-reviewed journals reflects not only the wide range of interactions IRL fosters with industry but also the high quality of that work.
1 Sauvageau et al., Carbohydrate Polymers, 82 (2010) 1110-1115
2 Steinhorn et al., Food Chemistry, 128 (2011) 949-956
3 Girvan et al., Vaccine, 29 (2011) 545-557
Release Date:
15 November, 2011