NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / New Zealand

Obituary: Scientist who seized every opportunity for medical research

By Nicola van Dijk
NZ Herald·
22 Feb, 2017 04:00 PM5 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Jim Watson's love for science led to his setting up several pioneering businesses in the field. Photo / Geoff Dale

Jim Watson's love for science led to his setting up several pioneering businesses in the field. Photo / Geoff Dale

Opinion

James Douglas Watson CNZM (1943 - 2017)
Every year in the young Jim Watson's hometown of Te Teko in the Bay of Plenty there was the county fair, an event to which every child (and adult) looked forward with great anticipation.

One year his older sister Anne entered the bake stall, spending most of the previous day perfecting her creation, a perfect chocolate slice.

Finding the remnants of this creativity in the kitchen that evening, Jim, aged 10, proceeded to package up the remnants, placing his own name on the entry. You can guess the rest. Jim won the competition, an incensed Anne, came second.

This episode has been rehashed and argued over during every family event since.

In many ways it sums up Jim entirely and not at all. Every crumb of opportunity was to be seized, every set-back a chance for something new and exciting, yet nobody who knew Jim well would ever argue against his innate honesty, reliability and sense of justice, both privately and professionally.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Dr James (Jim) Watson, founder of New Zealand's first biotech company, Genesis Research and Development, and the cancer research institute Caldera, died on February 13 after a long battle with cancer.

He received his Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to scientific and medical research in 2006 and was a member of the Government's Innovation and Advisory Board from 2001 to 2003.

President of the Royal Society of New Zealand from 2003-2006 and founder of the department of molecular medicine at the Auckland University medical school, Jim faithfully served New Zealand science for most of his adult life.

His passion for science, nurtured at Whakatane High School, led to a PhD in microbiology from the University of Auckland at the very young age of 23. This was followed by a post-doctoral position in the United States.

From the Syntex Research Institute on the Stanford Technology Park campus he went to the prestigious Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, as a research associate in 1969.

Here he would meet and work with the great geneticists and biochemists of the time including his namesake James Watson and colleague Francis Crick (Nobel Prize winners who uncovered the double helix structure of DNA) and Jonas Salk, the discoverer and developer of the polio vaccine.

It was the era of extraordinary discovery in the application and structure of DNA and for a farm boy from Te Teko it was exhilarating.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Jim's first major immunological discovery was the chemical messenger: interleukin 2. It was the gene system which would put him on the scientific map and launched his career.

Married to fellow New Zealander, Margaret, and now with two young boys in tow, he moved from the Salk Institute in 1975 to the department of microbiology in the college of medicine at the University of California at Irvine, where he was promoted to full professor in 1979.

Although his career in the States was flourishing and he had received a generous, prestigious offer to join colleague and friend Steve Gillis at the new Immunex complex, Jim made the difficult (and initially unpopular with his family) decision to return to New Zealand.

Here he founded the department of molecular medicine at the Auckland medical school.

Jim left the medical school in 1994 to found New Zealand's first biotech company, Genesis, which aimed to build a gene technology platform for use in developing health therapeutics and plant products. That was probably Jim's most difficult challenge to date.

Attracting funding and equipment from the United States, where big business was setting up similar companies, meant that he had to travel almost continuously. One year Jim was named as United Airlines second most frequent flyer worldwide.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Genesis had many successful discoveries and later formed two subsidiary companies, BioJoule and Lanzatech, which evolved out of the work of Genesis staff. The latter focused on opportunities in renewable fuels and in displacing petrochemicals.

By the time he stepped down as chief executive of Genesis in 2004, he had managed to raise $200 million for technology and product development, but it still wasn't enough.

Faced with a funding deficit and some unsuccessful vaccine trials, Genesis eventually folded. Jim continued as the managing director of BioJoule Ltd until its sale in 2007.

In 2004 he was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer and given three months to put his affairs in order. To most people this would signal the time to down tools, for Jim it was a great incentive to found a new company researching hormonal cancers.

Caldera was a success and is still operational today.

Caldera investigates not only the biological basis of hormonal cancers, but also the lifestyle practices that can affect it and the effects of medication.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

After 12 years and multiple rounds of medication, much of which was experimental, he began to succumb to the cumulative effects of the disease and medication.

He then took on the writing of three books, a family genealogy (a new-found passion), a personal history of his career, A Walk on the Science Side, and finally, Evolution and Energy in Cancer Cells.

Talking about Jim, people say what an amazing teacher and mentor he was and how greatly he inspired them and changed their lives. New Zealand science has lost a great man and his family a wonderful husband, father and grandfather.

* Dr Nicola van Dijk, an academic editor in Canberra, is Jim Watson's daughter-in-law.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from New Zealand

New Zealand

'Asbestos material': Fire lights up night sky in West Auckland

13 Jul 09:36 AM
Sport

Black Sox looking for eighth win at Softball World Cup

13 Jul 08:11 AM
Crime

Man jailed after forcing children to witness horrific animal cruelty

13 Jul 08:00 AM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from New Zealand

'Asbestos material': Fire lights up night sky in West Auckland

'Asbestos material': Fire lights up night sky in West Auckland

13 Jul 09:36 AM

Fire crews were called to the scene around 7.30pm.

Black Sox looking for eighth win at Softball World Cup

Black Sox looking for eighth win at Softball World Cup

13 Jul 08:11 AM
Man jailed after forcing children to witness horrific animal cruelty

Man jailed after forcing children to witness horrific animal cruelty

13 Jul 08:00 AM
One person dead after two-car crash in Canterbury town

One person dead after two-car crash in Canterbury town

13 Jul 06:30 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP