Revolutionary medical work wins scientist $100,000 prize

Peter Hunter. Photo / Richard Robinson

The country's top science award, the Rutherford Medal, was presented to Professor Peter Hunter last night for his ground-breaking work making computer models of human organs.

For the first time in its 18-year history, the medal came with $100,000 from the Government in prizemoney, which was presented to Professor Hunter by Research, Science and Technology Minister Wayne Mapp at a black-tie dinner in Auckland.

Professor Hunter is the head of the Bioengineering Institute at the University of Auckland, chairman of the Marsden Fund Council - which funds scientific research - and one of only a few dozen New Zealand scientists to have been made a fellow of the Royal Society in London.

Yesterday, the stubbornly modest professor insisted the prize was really for everybody at the Bioengineering Institute, which he founded in 2001. "I might buy a coffee machine with it," he joked.

Professor Hunter originally trained in engineering science but quickly began to see how equations and computers models could be used to copy the human body.

He was instrumental in creating the first mathematical model of a heart - which may soon be used by AUT University to help train physiotherapists.

Today, Bioengineering Institute researchers, including 60 PhD students, are working with universities overseas to create intricate computer models of all of the 12 major human organ systems, building each model from the genes up.

Professor Hunter hopes that one day the models may be used to tailor drugs to suit a particular person's DNA, or test treatments on a "virtual" body before applying them to a real person.

The president of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Dr Garth Carnaby, said the revolutionary approach to modelling the human body would eventually help advance treatments for a number of life-threatening diseases.

Professor Hunter said it was even possible that medical records could become a moving three-dimensional model of a person - updated every time they had a diagnostic test or scan.

The project has obvious commercial possibilities and Professor Hunter is keen to make sure New Zealand stays at the forefront in order to reap a share of future research money.

"You could have a web version of yourself and use it to sell clothes ... in the next 10 years."

He said many of the organ models could run on an ordinary desktop or laptop computer and could be used to help hospitals to plan surgery and make diagnoses.

Dr Mapp said Professor Hunter had the reputation to work anywhere in the world and New Zealand had been fortunate to keep him.