DR TOMMI VATANAN (Liggins Institute)
NICOLA WETERE
(CANARY ENTERPRISES)
Marshall is a biotechnologist and chemical engineer
with a career spanning a range of primary
industries including dairy, fruit, arable, meat
and seafood. Previous roles include managing
director of ViaLactia Biosciences, group director
R&D of the New Zealand Dairy Board and chief
executive of the New Zealand Dairy Research
Institute (now Fonterra Research Centre).
Marshall currently serves on a number of boards
and committees, such as Riddet CoRE (chair);
Food Industry Enabling Technologies
(chair); Industry Advisory Panel
for the High Value Nutrition
National Science Challenge
(chair); Bioresource
Processing Alliance;
Seafood Innovations Ltd; and the Foundation for
Arable Research strategic research committee.
He is a past member of the investment advisory
panel of the Primary Growth Partnership, and
the board of Plant and Food Research. A Fellow
of the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry and
New Zealand Institute of Food Science and
Technology (NZIFST), Marshall is an Honorary
Member of the International Dairy Federation,
past president of the Coordination Committee
and vice chairman of the Codex Milk Committee.
In 2016 he was awarded the IDF Award,
which recognises remarkable contributions to
progress in dairying worldwide.
www.nzfssrc.org.nz
DR KEVIN MARSHALL
(NZ FOOD SAFETY SCIENCE AND
RESEARCH CENTRE CHAIRMAN)
French, who heads the New Zealand
Food Safety Science and Research
Centre, received the Ministry for
Primary Industries Award 2018 for his
significant contribution to food safety
since arriving in New Zealand in 2004.
His innovative research programmes
and international standing have
allowed him to influence industry,
leading to necessary interventions.
He is a co-director of One Health
Aotearoa, adjunct professor at the
Medical School in Christchurch, and
a distinguished professor at Massey.
His research programmes have made
major advances in epidemiology,
statistics and modelling, and the tools
developed by this research have been
applied to great effect to improve
public health. www.massey.ac.nz
Born on a dairy farm in a small community outside
Whakatane, Wetere is chief executive of Canary
Enterprises, a manufacturer of value-added dairy and
selected non-dairy products which are supplied to
customers locally, Australia, the Pacific Islands, Asia
and the Middle East – as well as many airlines. The
Waikato University alumni, who won her first manager
role at the age of 26, is an Export Waikato committee
member and is passionate about exporting and New
Zealand brands on the world stage.
www.canaryfoods.co.nz
NIGEL FRENCH
(MASSEY UNIVERSITY)
A major international study charting
the developing gut bug populations
of babies and toddlers who are later
diagnosed with type 1 diabetes
is the culmination of many years’
work by Vatanen, who conducted
the study while based at the
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
in Massachusetts. Now based at
the Liggins Institute as a research
fellow, Vatanen used bacterial
gene sequencing to track the gut
microbiome of 783 children spread
across Finland, Sweden, Germany
and the US to generate the richest
data set of its kind to date. He
believes healthy children have more
Lactobacillus rhamnosus, common
in fermented milk products such
as yoghurt and linked to better
gut digestion, than those children
susceptible to diabetes, and harboured
more bacterial genes that
fuel short-chain fatty-acid production.
Probiotics may be protective
against type 1 diabetes for children
with high genetic risk, but more
research is needed. “First, we need
to run controlled clinical trials of,
for example, carefully selected pro-
and/or pre-biotic supplements. It
also may be possible to protect
children from type 1 diabetes
by radically changing their gut
microbiome by way of a gut bugs
transfer – another exciting research
direction,” Vatanen says.
www.auckland.ac.nz
50 ANNUAL DIRECTORY 2019
/www.nzfssrc.org.nz
/www.massey.ac.nz
/www.canaryfoods.co.nz
/www.auckland.ac.nz
