Scientist unlocks economic value of milk
A dairy researcher reveals fresh insights, writes Rob Mitchell.
This project is definitely out of the ordinary. It's about coming at things from a different angle. Rob Ward
One droplet of milk. It’s all Rob Ward needs to unlock the inner mysteries of New Zealand’s milk.
That’s because the Massey University post-doctoral researcher has a laser-like focus on the country’s white gold and how to extract even more value from it.
Ward and others are illuminating that potential in a lab deep in the heart of Massey University.
There he sets about doing what he’s always done since he was a boy – feeding his fascination for the way the world and everything within it works, asking the kinds of questions that just might lead to the kinds of answers with big paydays for the country.
‘‘I’ve always had a very strong curiosity about how things work, and I still have that,’’ he says. ‘‘Science has allowed me to understand how things work at a much, much smaller scale.’’
These days Ward can find a vast world of knowledge from that single droplet of milk. When he was younger, however, it was the world that seemed too small.
As a child growing up in small South Island communities, Ward found his thirst for knowledge evaporated by a lack of ambition and support from those around him.
‘‘When I was younger I questioned everything, but my parents did not have the answers and it was very stifling,’’ he says. ‘‘There was no vision of university for me, it never entered the equation at all. It was about the family culture, what you learn as you grow up.’’
He says his parents would have been happy if he’d become a plumber. But it was a family friend who gave an early inspiring insight into another possible future.
‘‘I remember being five years old and standing in the kitchen. My dad had a friend, Ollie, who was at Canterbury University doing electronic engineering and he talked to my dad about radios and electronics and I was fascinated about that – how you can send something from here to there – it’s like magic.’’
The spell was cast. Ward was entranced by everything electrical and after two years training at polytech he worked for Pertronic Industries in Wellington, designing electronics and software for fire alarm systems.
That great thirst for knowledge was not quenched, however. He had taken what he knew as far as it could go.
‘‘I really wanted to know more,’’ he says, ‘‘I thought I was capable of doing that but that path hadn’t opened up to me in the past.’’
That new road had become clear for Ward, now in his 20s. It led to the doors of Victoria University, where he dived into the detail of physics and computer science and graduated with a maths degree.
He also studied philosophy – ‘‘which I really loved’’ - and took another year to graduate with a physics honours degree.
From there he took his wife, Liz, and two young daughters, Rebekah (now 17) and Hannah (15), to Palmerston North and Massey University to complete his PHD. As part of his studies Ward used low field NMR – Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, which he compares with MRI scanning.
That led to post-doctoral research, some of which involves the dairy industry and projects funded by the Transforming the Dairy Value Chain Primary Growth Partnership programme, a seven-year, $170 million innovation programme involving the Ministry for Primary Industries and commercial partners, including the kiwifruit industry, Dairynz and Fonterra. The programme aims to enable the creation of new dairy products, increase on-farm productivity, reduce environmental impacts, and improve agricultural education.
The PGP funding allows Ward and his colleagues to use techniques and technologies not used before by the dairy industry to gain valuable new insights into milk and what happens to it as it moves through different supply chains.
‘‘This project is definitely out of the ordinary,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s about coming at things from a different angle.’’
That angle involves using what Ward calls microfluidics and optical tweezers to study milk at the ‘‘particle level - dealing with fluids at micro-length scales; you are studying nano-litre samples.’’
‘‘What we’re really looking to understand is how particles clump together in milk products, because it’s undesirable as it can produce characteristics consumers don’t like such as sediment or a layer on the product surface. This is dependent on the type of particle – some rise to the top and others sink to the bottom when they clump during the manufacture, storage and distribution of dairy products.’’
That focus is the same when Ward uses optical tweezers, in which a laser is used to reach out and grab a particle.
‘‘These particles are really small,’’ he says.
‘‘So if you took a thousand of them, put them in a line, you get one millimetre, so they are one micron in diameter. There’s quite a lot of physics in there.’’
And that’s where the ‘‘Crusher’’ comes in.
‘‘The tweezers are low-power laser traps that trap particles one at a time; the Crusher uses a highpowered laser to grab particles all around the sample and then forces them together at the focus of the laser and crushes them into a confined space. Then you can turn the laser off and see how many of those particles stay stuck together.’’
Ward uses the Crusher and other techniques to get a handle on the smaller picture, but he understands the wider view of what his work is about and how it helps the industry and economy.
‘‘What it’s giving us is a more fundamental understanding of the science. It’s going to give input into building a better product, a more stable beverage, something that is going to last on the shelf for a longer period of time.
‘‘The stuff I’m dealing with is potentially of considerable economic value to Fonterra and the industry.’’
When he’s not at work feeding his passion for the inner workings of the physical world, Ward, a proud evangelical and moral conservative, likes to examine more spiritual issues.
He reads a lot of non-fiction, particularly anything on the theological struggle between faith and science. He’s passionate on the subject and sees a strong unity rather than the perceived conflict.
‘‘My view is that faith and science totally overlap and your world view should take both of them into account,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s a very important part of who I am . . . it still excites me in the same way that physics excites me to understand how the world works physically.’’
Football is also important in the Ward household. Both his daughters play in the Awatapu College team that Ward coaches, but that has set the family up for a struggle a little closer to home.
Ward’s favourite club, Manchester United, has just taken on former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho, which is not going down well with Chelsea-loving eldest daughter Rebekah. Both will be hoping their club crushes the other in the new season.