7 November 2002 Outstanding Young Scientist Honoured

The New Zealand Association of Scientists' Research Medal for 2002 has been presented to Dr Jack Heinemann of the University of Canterbury's Department of Plant and Microbial Sciences at a ceremony at Lincoln University today (7 Nov).

The medal is for Dr Heinemann's outstanding contribution to the knowledge of horizontal gene transfer in bacteria (the movement of genetic material from bacteria to other organisms other than through descent when cells divide) and the biology of genetic elements outside chromosomes.

The Research Medal is an annual award to a scientist aged under 40 for outstanding research work, principally undertaken in New Zealand during the three preceding years.

Dr Heinemann's research seeks to define the mechanisms and extent of gene transfer among microorganisms in different environments. He and a colleague recently demonstrated that a process of natural DNA transfer occurring between closely related bacteria is also effective in transferring genes to organisms of different biological kingdoms.

Dr Heinemann has also shown that bacteria can evade antibiotics, and acquire genes for resistance to antibiotics, by invading human cells and exchanging genes with one another while inside these cells. A paper on this attracted considerable international interest and was cited by the American Society for Microbiology in April this year as the best microbiology paper in the world.

He has been primary supervisor to about 10 PhD students and twice that number of MSc and BSc (Hons) students, a number of whom are pursuing outstanding careers of their own.

For his work he has received a number of awards and recognition including invited reviews on these subjects for prestigious journals. He received the American Society for Microbiology ICAAC Young Investigator Award at a very young age and was a Rockefeller Scholar in New York in 2001.

At the age of 39, Dr Heinemann has established himself as an unusually productive and accomplished researcher. He has been able to maintain his productivity and competitiveness while residing in New Zealand. His work may eventually yield insights into the design of fundamentally different anti-infective agents for the control of antibiotic resistance and infectious diseases. Simultaneously, his work is relevant to the volatile debate on assessing the risks of genetically modified organisms to the environment.

For further information contact: Dr Jack Heinemann, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.