Dr Jarrah Dowrick of the University of Auckland’s Bioengineering Institute in New Zealand has received a Mana Tūāpapa Future Leader Fellowship from Royal Society Te Apārangi, worth NZ$820,000 over four years.
The project aims to understand why so many people have chronic gut symptoms and why women are more affected. Irritable bowel syndrome affects around one in five New Zealanders, and women are diagnosed twice as often as men. The team will study the proteins that regulate water and nutrient absorption in the gut and whether oestrogen is a key link.
The work combines laboratory experiments with advanced computer modelling, with the goal of building virtual tools that help clinicians understand how an individual’s gut works and choose treatments more likely to succeed. The fellowship also supports partnerships with clinicians, patients and Māori researchers.
