The New Zealand-born director of pharmacology at a giant US pharmaceutical company says we need to encourage "esoteric research" and high quality teaching at universities, while not underestimating the importance of teaching in our secondary schools.
Jilly Evans, speaking at the Catching the Knowledge Wave conference inAuckland this afternoon, described how her interest in science was stimulated by teacher Neil Akehurst, now teaching at Rangitoto College, who painstakingly built a model of the DNA double helix for his students in the 1960s.
Her second great secondary school mentor is someone she only recently met face to face for the first time, Jean Struthers, who taught chemistry by correspondence. Although she was 70-years-old at the time, Mrs Struthers' passion for her subject inspired Jilly Evans.
Ms Evans works for Merck Research Laboratories where her current research is based on finding breakthrough drug targets in the human genomic datases - a high stakes investment with a potentially wonderful jackpot of finding a drug to treat diabetes, cancer, or heart disease.
Ms Evans told the 450 conference delegates that teachers such as Mr Akehurst and Mrs Struthers should be placed on pedestals like rugby players for the contributions they make to the country's future workforce.
She says Kiwi ingenuity is alive and well - "it just needs a little shot in the arm".
"Internationally, many governments and their agencies, along with business, are responding by investing more in research and high tech industries."
She referred to her experience in Montreal, where the provincial government of Quebec gave major tax incentives for companies to do research, and gave highly skilled foreign workers three years of residence tax-free.
"A lot of industry and skilled New Zealanders have left New Zealand over the past 20 years. We need to find ways to repatriate some of these industries and people and reincorporate them into the fabric of the New Zealand society."
Ms Evans says she is looking forward to moving back to New Zealand in five year's time, and hopes to be an advocate for the "thoughtful and beneficial use of biotechnology" as well as a passionate science mentor for young people.
