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Te Wā Tuku Reo Māori | The Māori Language Moment

This month, the Mātai whānau shared some kai and waiata for Māori Language Movement.

Eighteen people aiming to pursue a career in bioengineering, medical imaging, medical physics, or health and medical sciences applied for the Mātai Tairāwhiti student scholarship. Another 29 students applied for the 2023-24 Mātai summer internship programme. We'll confirm successful candidates in the coming weeks.

We're incredibly grateful to Trust Tairāwhiti for providing $30,000 towards the feasibility work for the second phase of the Mātai campus development on Childers Road. Mātai and Turanga Health will be co-hosting a community hangi at the Mātai site on Saturday 25 November, 11am-1pm. We hope to see our Tairāwhiti Gisborne community there!

The Mātai team continues to grow. Over the past two months, we welcomed Molly Para as a kaumātua to assist with the Mātai building opening; Dr Mark Griffin (statistician, mathematician, and computer engineer); and Dr William Schierding who joins us as an Honorary Research Fellow. Our new Gisborne-based PhD candidates Ben Bristow and Katie Blackburne are officially on board, and Sam Gaddum is our casual research assistant. 

Mātai has a career opening. We're looking a finance manager. 

It has been an exciting couple of months, with new papers being published, including:

• Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery paper around better visualisation of neuroinflammation
• Synthetic MRI Generation from CT Scans for Stroke Patients
• Machine Learning for Medical Image Translation

We are hugely grateful to Ngāi Tamawharuia iwi, who hosted us at their Te Rereatakahia Marae in Katikati as part of a weekend long kōrero on equity, diversity, and inclusion. Leigh Potter and Dr Samantha Holdsworth were delighted to attend this kōrero, organised by IRANZ and funded by MBIE. 

We congratulate Rangiwaho Marae Trust for their successful collaborative HRC 2023 Ngā Kanohi Kitea Project Grant to study weraroa taonga species; and Gina Waters for grant successes and speaking events.

We are pleased to announce a collaboration between Mātai and Professor Holly Thorpe. 

September was Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. The Mātai accuracy and equity MRI guided prostate cancer project is well-underway, with more than 100 men in Tairāwhiti now through the programme. Fourty percent of them were able to avoid an unnecessary biopsy thanks to the new diagnosis pathway. 

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 

This month, the Mātai whānau shared some kai and waiata for Māori Language Moment. This marks the very moment the Māori Language Petition was presented to Parliament in 1972. Three years later, it became what we now know as Te Wiki o te Reo Māori.

We're incredibly grateful to Trust Tairāwhiti for providing $30,000 towards the feasibility work for the second phase of the Mātai campus development on Childers Road, facilitated by Dr Kobus Mentz from Urbanimplus. 

It was a pleasure to host some of Mātai Board members (Dr Brett Cowan, John Pittar, Sir Professor Richard Faull, and Joe Bryden) for a board workshop where members of the Mātai team got some invaluable guidance.

This month, NZ 'P' Pull regional manager/Manaaki Moves programme lead Tuta Ngarimu and Mātai Charge MRI technologist Paul Condron attended a national wananga organised by NZ 'P' Pull. This was a meeting for the regional facilitators from throughout NZ to discuss past and future goals to assist people in their abstinence from meth use. Mātai is working alongside the Tairāwhiti branch of the NZ "P" Pull team in the methamphetamine recovery project involving cutting-edge imaging as part of participants' recovery journey.

Ready to be a part of a world-leading research facility in Tairāwhiti? 

We were thrilled to have so many wonderful visitors over the past two months including (left) Jenny Morel (Morgo), (right) Professor Claire Adida and Professor Jennifer Burney from the University of Califonia San Diego

From left: Paul Condron (Mātai Charge MRI Tech), Taylor Emsden (Mātai Trainee MRI Tech), Manuela Zimmer (University of Stuttgart), Dr Geoffrey Handfield (Auckland Bioengineering Institute).

Mātai hosted Dr Geoffrey Handsfield, Senior Research Fellow from the Auckland Bioengineering Institute, and Manuela Zimmer, visiting PhD student from the University of Stuttgart, worked on protocol analysis and testing with Mātai stagg over several days. 

Dr Handsfield and Ms Zimmer use MRI to develop computational models of skeletal muscle to better understand processes of diseases like cerebral palsy and the natural aging process. Of particular interest is the imaging technique known as Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), which enables researchers to reconstruct skeletal muscle architecture by imaging the diffusion of water molecules in tissue.

As a test for their work, they set up a lattice of celery which they imaged on Mātai's 3T MRI scanner. The diffusion through the celery capillaries can then be compared to the known shape of the celery stalks.

Targeted MRI (tMRI)

A team led by Emeritus Professor Graeme Bydder, along with Mātai, UCSD, and others, has published a new paper: Targeted MRI (tMRI) of Small Changes in the T1 and Spatial Properties of Normal or Near Normal Appearing White and Gray Matter in Disease of the Brain using Divided Subtracted Inversion Recovery (dSIR) and Divided Reverse Subtracted Inversion Recovery (drSIR) Sequences.

The work provides an addition to the mathematical framework that was developed by Dr Graeme Bydder and team, and hones in on the application to neuroinflammation. The new paper also shows some preliminary results suggesting this technique may be used to detect and monitor subtle neuroinflammation.

The dSIR and drSIR sequences described in the paper have the potential to produce a substantial advance in clinical MRI by bringing greater visual clarity to abnormalities in the brain that currently are not seen, or only poorly seen, with the current imaging technology. The dSIR and drSIR sequences may also produce more certainty about the absence of disease in normal appearing tissues than conventional sequences.

It is possible that the new  technique will make it easier to spot conditions like brain inflammation, multiple sclerosis, and long Covid.

Synthetic MRI Generation from CT Scans for Stroke Patients

Congratulations to Jake McNaughton, Samantha Holdsworth, Benjamin Chong, Justin Fernandez, Vickie Shim, and Alan Wang for their new publication "Synthetic MRI Generation from CT Scans for Stroke Patients" which was  published in BioMedInformatics. The latter article, led by Jake and Alan, features affiliations from Auckland Bioengineering Institute, the Centre for Brain Research, the University of Auckland, and the Mātai Medical Research Institute. The study focuses on the imaging methods for stroke patients. Currently, CT scans are the primary choice due to speed and accessibility, but the paper explores the potential of MRI, known for its superior image quality and tissue contrast. Eight deep learning models were developed, trained, and tested using a dataset comprising 181 CT/MR pairs from stroke patients. The standout performer among these models was the 3D UNet model, consistently generating synthetic MRIs with remarkable fidelity. These synthetic MRIs, derived from CT scans, offer a transformative tool for aligning CT scans with MRI atlases. They enable precise segmentation of white matter, grey matter, and cerebrospinal fluid, closely mirroring authentic MRIs. Congratulations also to Jake, Alan and the team for their even more recent systematic review article on "Machine Learning for Medical Image Translation", which can be accessed here. 

Researchers, please tell us about your challenges!

Researchers, please tell us about your challenges! We're sharing a survey below to understand your challenges, with the aim of creating a platform that can provide the learning tools and connections needed to advance your work.

Therapeutic effect of a native mushroom

The whānau of Rangiwaho marae have prepared a study to comprehensively investigate the therapeutic potential of natural psychoactive molecules derived from taonga species. In collaboration with iwi communities and Māori businesses, the whānau of Rangiwaho Marae are investigating the therapeutic potential of natural psychoactive molecules derived from taonga species.  The aim is to develop tikanga Māori (protocol) for safe administering of psilocybin-containing taonga species of mushroom (Weraroa) for treating addiction and other mental health conditions such as depression in a marae setting.

Dr Patrick McHugh, Mātai community health liaison and PhD student Ben Bristow will support various aspects of the project, with a particular focus on the use of functional MRI. This work is supported by the Rangiwaho Marae Trust and a HRC 2023 Ngā Kanohi Kitea Project Grant. 

Neurofanos - Brain tumour navigation

Congratulations to Dorrin Asefi from Neurofanos for her excellent presentation at the Velocity Challenge finals in Auckland. Ms Asefi is part of a team that includes Dr Hamid Abassi (lead, Auckland Bioengineering Institute), Dr Jason Correia (Neurosurgery, Auckland Hospital), and Dr Holdsworth who are working on new and more precise software and hardware for brain tumour surgery. Thanks to Ken Erskine who mentored the team through the Ventures Lab programme at the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) at the University of Auckland. The team was recently successful with a $1M MBIE Smart Ideas award to further develop the prototype. Congratulations also to Alireza Sharif-Zadeh, Jiantao Shen, and Tony Cui (Auckland Bioengineering Institute) for the Blues award for innovation for their work on Neurofanos.

Mātai & Tōnui Collab sign MOU

To help encourage our younger tamariki to develop an interest in sciences and technology, we are excited to be supporting Tōnui Collab with a space in our new building, opening opportunities for our kids to see research in action, and available career possibilities available. 

Solving the Concussion Puzzle

95% of traumatic brain injuries reported per year worldwide are mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBIs), better known as concussions. Today, there is no clinically available objective test to diagnose the severity of this injury or monitor its recovery but researchers at Mātai Medical Research Institute in Gisborne, New Zealand are trying to find a way to properly diagnose and monitor concussions' recovery with the use of innovative technology.

Cerebral Palsy & Muscle Development

Dr. Geoffery Handsfield, a Senior Research Fellow at the Auckland bioengineering institute, is collaborating with Mātai to build imaging-based computational models using MRI data to explore musculoskeletal aspects of cerebral palsy. This research offers hope for personalized treatment of cerebral palsy and could enhance tailored physiotherapy and orthopaedic surgery for patients.

Image of the Future - 23/24 Nov 2023

This inaugural gathering expands on the planned February event that was cancelled due to Cyclone Gabrielle. Over two full days, we have two segments: 'Science' and 'Community'. 

Hear from a range of wonderful speakers including Distinguished Professor Sir Richard Faull, Professor Peter Hunter, Professor Katie McMahon, Professor Helen Danesh-Meyer, Associate Professor Jerome Maller, Associate Professor Hesam Jahanian, Dr Georgia Carson, Emeritus Professor Terry Peters, Dr Gary Cowin, Professor Azadeh Yazdan-Shahmorad, Dr Catherine Morgan, and many Mātai collaborative talks.

In the community segment, you will hear from researchers and community health leaders about topics like ADHD, concussion, Parkinson's disease, Traumatic Brain Injury, cardiac science, health models for Pacific people, Turanga Health's resilience journey, COVID, mate wareware (dementia), the eye as a biomarker, methamphetamine recovery, prostate cancer, Mātai roadmap to the future, and more.

We would like to thank our gold sponsors, a HRC Ngā Kanohi Kitea grant, a Royal Society Te Apārangi Marsden Foundation grant, and the Auckland Bioengineering Institute (ABI). Thank you to our silver sponsor Dame Bronwen and Dr Peter Holdsworth Family Endowment Fund at the Sunrise Foundation.

Gisborne A&P Show - 13/14 Oct 2023

The annual Gisborne A&P show is set to go ahead next month. Mātai plans to host a science and technology tent with lots of fun, hands on activities for all ages, thanks to our many supporters.

The Science of Concussion - 12 Oct 2023

Dr Josh McGeown (Mātai Research Fellow) and Dr Helen Murray (Centre for Brain Research) are set to discuss their research on head injuries in contact sport, at the upcoming evening with Neurological Foundation of New Zealand. Dr McGeown and Dr Murray will be introduced by Mātai Trustee, Distinguished Professor Sir Richard Faull next Thursday! 🧠 🏈 🧠 🏈

We would like to acknowledge, with appreciation, our supporters who made the establishment of Mātai possible, including Kānoa - RDU, Trust Tairāwhiti, the Mangatawa Beale Williams Memorial Trust, the JN and HB Williams Foundation, the University of Auckland, GE Healthcare, Dame Bronwen and Dr Peter Holdsworth Trust, Pultron Composites Limited, Hugh Green Foundation, the Lotteries Significant Projects Fund, Fred Lewis Enterprise Foundation, the QUEST Trust, Friends of Mātai, local iwi, and many others.

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