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July 22, 2024
Fellowship catching for Māori health researchers
Atereano Mateariki
Posted On July 22, 2024
Download AudioA winner of a new fellowship for Māori researching infectious diseases says she’s looking forward to returning to Aotearoa to put in practice what she’s learning.
Theresa Pankhurst is currently on a Churchill scholarship at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, England, where she’s looking at ways to rejuvenate the immune system of people as they age.
Te Niwha, the country’s infectious diseases research body, has created the one-year Kia Niwha Leader Fellowships to support and lift Māori disease researchers into health leadership.
Dr Pankhurst, who works for the Malaghan Institute, says Māori see their kaumātua as taonga, but they can be highly vulnerable to infectious disease such as Covid.
“I view this research as a wraparound almost korowai for our kaumatua and our kuia as it focuses on identifying treatments that will help their specific immune systems to fight infection,” she says.
The six Kia Niwha fellows will attend quarterly wananga.
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