Researchers excel at Fetal and Neonatal Physiological Society meeting in Japan

Dr Courtney McDonald (left) and Ms Madison Paton (right) at the FNPS award ceremony. Courtney and Madison are accompanied by Professor Alistair Gunn, Professor of Physiology, University of Auckland. He is the son of the late Tanya Gunn who, together with Alistair, pioneered the use of neonatal hypothermia as a treatment for term neonatal hypoxic aischaemic enthepalopathy.

Ms Madison Paton and Dr Courtney McDonald took out the two major awards at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Fetal and Neonatal Physiological Society Meeting held in Osaka, Japan, last week.

Madison received the Tanya Gunn prize for best oral presentation by a PhD Student for her talk titled “Assessing human umbilical cord blood therapy as an early treatment for preterm brain injury”.

Courtney took out the Tanya Gunn prize for best oral presentation by a postdoctoral researcher for her talk entitled “Differential effects of umbilical cord blood cells to reduce neuroinflammation following neonatal Hypoxic-Ischaemic brain injury".

Courtney and Madison were ably supported by other members of The Ritchie Centre who gave excellent oral and poster presentations, including a memorable keynote lecture by Associate Professor Flora Wong titled “Cerebral haemodynamic functional response in fetus and neonate”.

Congratulations to all involved in promoting the great work undertaken at The Ritchie Centre.

- Prof Graham Jenkin