Living well & ageing well Research Talks 2025 - Rangiora

Te Papa Hauora together with the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation bring you ‘Living well & ageing well’, a series of free community research talks.

Our latest event of this series is focused on heart health, brain health with relation to mood disorders, and exercise throughout the journey of cancer treatment. Come and join us to learn more about what you can do to maintain wellness and stay healthy from some of Canterbury’s leading researchers.

Meet our speakers:

Heart disease is a leading cause of avoidable, premature death in New Zealand.  Anna’s talk will describe her search for information in our DNA that can help identify people at impending risk of a heart attack or those at risk of a poor outcome after they’ve had one. Anna is a cardiovascular genetics researcher undertaking research into the mechanisms underlying inherited susceptibility to heart disease. She is particularly interested in identifying molecules that circulate in our blood that may signal the early stages of heart disease and contribute to a poor prognosis in heart patients.

Anna Pilbrow is a Research Associate Professor at the Christchurch Heart Institute at the University of Otago, Christchurch. She completed her PhD in 2006 and undertook postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute, USA from 2008 to 2010. Her research focusses on understanding the mechanisms underlying inherited susceptibility to heart disease.

Cognitive function is our ability to think, learn and remember. Katie’s research explores the cognitive aspects of anxiety and mood disorders, and how training programmes, therapies, and environmental interventions can target these. Katie will share some tips for preserving and improving cognitive and mental health.

Katie is an Associate Professor in the department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Otago, and a Registered Clinical Psychologist. Her research focuses on development of novel interventions to help long-term recovery for people with mood and anxiety disorders, and understanding hormonal aspects of mood disorders in women.

We know that exercise has many health benefits, but is it safe and beneficial during cancer treatment? Margaret will share evidence showing the benefits of exercise before, during and after cancer treatment, and describe how a personalised, supervised exercise program can reduce the negative side-effects of cancer treatment, improve quality of life and lead to better treatment outcomes.

Associate Professor Margaret Currie leads the Tumour Microenvironment research program in the Mackenzie Cancer Research Group at the University of Otago Christchurch. Her research focuses on the biological environment and how this affects the way cancer cells grow, spread and respond to anti-cancer therapies.