Research into using the ''exciting'' therapeutic potential of viruses to heal diabetic skin wounds is among a number of University of Otago research topics boosted by about $15.5 million in the latest Health Research Council funding round.
The 10 Otago contracts announced yesterday include a five-year programme investigating how proteins from an ''orf virus'', usually found in sheep, can be exploited to provide potential therapies for skin wounds.
The proteins could also help with other conditions in humans, such as cancer, inflammatory disorders and viral infection, researchers say.
Otago gained the second largest funding total of any New Zealand research institution this year, behind Auckland University, which gained $31.2 million from more than $58 million allocated in the annual HRC round.
The funding round highlighted the highly competitive pressures facing all university researchers seeking contestable funding.
The $15.5 million Otago total was below the $27 million it gained last year, and the lowest amount gained by the university in annual HRC funding rounds over the past five years.
The biggest single Otago grant this year was $4.9 million in programme funding gained by Prof Andrew Mercer, who heads the Virus Research Unit in the microbiology and immunology department.
''It's a huge relief. We're delighted,'' Prof Mercer said.
The large and complex ''orf virus'', which is most commonly seen in people who have come into contact with infected sheep, causes severe skin lesions that, remarkably, heal without scarring.
Prof Mercer and his colleagues have discovered many novel proteins in the virus that may explain this phenomenon, HRC officials said yesterday. Unravelling the ''complex interactions'' between viruses and humans also provided ''unique insights into our own physiology and immune defences'', Prof Mercer said.
Viruses were often viewed negatively, and often adversely affected human health, but ''we're getting our own back on the virus''.
There was an exciting potential to develop new drugs which could help with diabetic wound healing problems, by using some of the techniques the virus used to benefit itself, including increasing blood flow.
Researchers from across the university's Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington campuses had also gained funding for nine other ''world-class projects'', which included cancer genetics, two fertility-related biomedical projects and developing a school-based asthma support toolkit for Maori children, university officials said.
Grants made to Otago University researchers.- Prof Antony Braithwaite, pathology, $1,185,648; Associate Prof Colin Brown, physiology, $1,003,783; Prof David Grattan, anatomy, $1,164,184; Dr Brian Monk, dentistry, $1,190,954; Prof Mark Richards, $1,195,997, Prof Lisa Stamp, $1,199,969; Associate Prof Peter Sykes, $1,196,179, all Christchurch campus; Mrs Bernadette Jones, $1,199,064; Associate Prof Beverley Lawton, with Ministry of Health co-funding, $1,199,906, both at the Wellington campus. john.gibb@odt.co.nz
