Juliet Gerrard
Builder of molecular blocks
Juliet Gerrard wants science to be useful. That’s why she ditched her pointyheaded academic position at Britain’s prestigious Oxford University, to instead cure croissants at Lincoln’s Crop and Food crown research institute.
It’s why she undertook commercial research projects funded by Fonterra and the United States military.
And it’s why she thinks it’s OK that her new role – the country’s chief science adviser – reports to the prime minister, rather than being completely free to investigate whatever subjects she wants. That’s the tradeoff for making sure your work can actually influence policy plans.
We’ve been discussing the risk that commercial funding of scientific research suffocates scientists’ ability to be the critics and conscience of society, and the risk commercially unpalatable results will be suppressed. It’s a real issue, and one that needs careful management, Gerrard says. But there’s a worse fate.
‘‘Actually sadder is when the results are out there and not being used.’’
After three months of touring the country listening to scientists, Gerrard has a fair idea of her priorities for her three-year term. Plastics is likely to be first up – how to change behaviour to minimise plastic use; how to recycle, collect and reuse waste better in the medium term and – in the long term – what might replace them altogether, such as plantbased alternatives being investigated by CRI Scion.
So does she take reusable bags to the supermarket? ‘‘I do now – since I took this job!’’ she laughs.
Genetic modification also features – scientists are frustrated the law hasn’t kept up with the science. Scientists can create genetic mutations using radiation or chemicals, but it takes longer and is less safe than newer, more precise technology.
‘‘The legal and regulatory framework is not fit for purpose – it wasn’t futureproofed. It’s a bit like saying, ‘We want to reduce fuel use, but you’re not allowed to drive a Tesla because electric cars weren’t invented in 1996’.’’
Some argue it’s pointless debating the ethics of innovations that might be 20 years away – or might never eventuate – such as genetic modification to wipe out mammalian pests such as possums. Gerrard disagrees: ‘‘One of the reasons we’re in this situation is because we haven’t had the conversation ahead of the technology.’’
The way she describes it, Gerrard has breadth. To put it another way, the 51-year-old hasn’t walked a straight path. A pupil of ‘‘rough and tumble’’ English comprehensive schools, she was fascinated by chemistry teacher Mr Parrot’s presentation of science as a discovery process, rather than a set of facts.
She got a scholarship to Oxford. Having hit the academic career jackpot, she tossed it in to move to Christchurch, to study the crosslinking of proteins that gives structure to baking. Colleagues called it academic suicide.
‘‘I wanted to do something useful. I thought I’d cure cancer, but I ended up curing croissants.’’
Along the way she learnt to build relationships with business, to translate science into everyday language, to research answers to real-world problems, and to apply for funding. Oh, and she had two kids. What she didn’t learn was how to bake good croissants.
Gerrard was in Wellington for meetings and the Royal Society’s annual dinner doling out the country’s top science awards. She tweeted a photo of four women backed by basins and shiny white tiles. ‘‘Changing times – queue for the ladies at the awards dinner,’’ she notes.
When she got the chief adviser’s job in June, she was surprised how many people remarked on her gender. It wasn’t exactly a historic coup for the role – there’s only been one other chief science adviser and he happened to be a man. But the spectre of gender has quietly lurked throughout her diverse career.
At Crop and Food, she missed teaching so applied – several times – for a job at Canterbury University. Maybe there were better candidates, but some ‘‘loose comments’’ made her wonder whether it was a level playing field. ‘‘Are you sure you’ve got time to do an academic job, because you’ve got two children,’’ one selector asked.
That was 20 years ago and much has changed, with universities introducing objective promotion measures, such as research grants, number of Phds graduated, papers published. But she still worries about senior positions – which are often appointed by headhunters or HR firms, who rely on networks, which tend to be male.
‘‘So if it’s a leadership role, your perceptions of what a leader looks like are going to influence how you judge the candidates. And I think just bringing that to the surface makes a difference to how it’s viewed.’’
Ahard-hitting report by Gerrard’s predecessor, Sir Peter Gluckman, into the flawed meth testing regime underlined the importance of scientists being able to speak out about bad policy that affects Kiwis’ lives.
Critics argue the reliance of Kiwi scientists on commercial research funding curtails their ability to be society’s critics and conscience. It’s an issue Gerrard is well attuned to: she chaired the board that administers the country’s premier non-commercial research grants, the Marsden Fund. Only 12 per cent of applicants get funded.
And she has her own experience balancing commercial interests. Her research into proteins – known as the building blocks of life – led to commercial research contacts with Fonterra and the US Army.
How did it feel to work for the US military? She thought hard about it, but the projects were extensions of work she was already doing. One was looking for antimicrobial agents – they wanted to know if it would work for anthrax. The other was attempting to turn cheap proteins into a material like spider silk – they wanted a light, strong and eventually self-healing material. A condition of the grant was that the research was published.
‘‘I always used to make the quip that it was easier to work with the US Military than Fonterra, because for Fonterra that work was under a confidentiality agreement. So we could publish it, but only with their permission.’’
In 2015, after moving to Auckland University – where she is still based – she founded start-up company Hi-aspect, which makes novel wound-healing products using her protein research. She quickly learned founding a startup did not make you immune to commercial conflicts – companies bow to their boards and shareholders.
While she doesn’t think important science is being widely suppressed because of confidentiality agreements, Gerrard says scientists need to ensure contracts allow publication of results that should be made public. The same goes for the prime minister’s Chief Science Adviser, and she’s working to get terms of reference to reflect that.
‘‘It’s really important that I am able to speak out publicly if government policy is inconsistent with the science advice, as in the meth case.
‘‘Rigorous, transparent, accessible and inclusive’’ are the tenets Gerrard wants her office to work by. Her other loves – the theatre, movies, books and the renovation project on the Great Barrier Island bach she bought just before getting the job – will have to wait.
‘‘I wanted to do something useful. I thought I’d cure cancer, but I ended up curing croissants.’’