The Royal Society Te Apārangi and its Manawatū Branch are delighted to present a special public talk from the winner of the Rutherford Medal in 2024. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from one of New Zealand’s leading researchers – this promises to be a fascinating and thought-provoking evening.

Professor Richard Beasley CNZM FRSNZ, the 2024 Rutherford Medal winner, will highlight ten influential research programmes that have challenged long-held clinical assumptions, advanced medical knowledge, and directly influenced patient care:

Should fever be treated?
What is the optimal amount of oxygen for critically ill patients?
Are party pills safe, and do they affect driving performance?
Does smoking cannabis cause lung cancer?
Is sitting for long periods at work or during recreation a risk factor for blood clots?
Should preservatives be included in asthma nebuliser solutions?
Is ‘watchful waiting’ preferable to surgery for a collapsed lung?
What are the underlying disease processes of asthma?
What was the cause of the epidemic of asthma deaths in New Zealand?
Are adult asthma treatments suitable for children?

The answers to many of these research questions were unexpected. The research raises significant regulatory and legal issues. It also exposes the limited evidence of the benefit and safety of many fundamental approaches to the clinical management of common disorders, and the gaps in knowledge, particularly in children.

Join us for this fascinating presentation that will illustrate the unpredictable nature of research and its influence to reshape our understanding.

Biography

Professor Richard Beasley, renowned academic, physician, and researcher, is the founder and director of the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINZ). Richard is committed to challenging medical dogma and increasing knowledge through undertaking high-quality clinical research which has the real potential to change clinical practice and reduce the burden of disease in Aotearoa New Zealand and globally.

Alongside his role at the MRINZ, Richard is a physician at Wellington Regional Hospital, and maintains close academic links through his professorial appointments at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, and the University of Otago - Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. Richard was Deputy Chair of the Health Research Council of New Zealand from 2010 to 2016 and has had a longstanding medical advisory role with the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation of New Zealand, chairing the group which produced the adolescent and adult asthma guidelines. He is dedicated to workforce training, having supervised and mentored hundreds of medical research fellows over the past three decades, many of whom obtained postgraduate MD and PhD degrees and now hold prominent academic and clinical positions in Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world.

Richard is one of New Zealand’s most experienced clinician researchers, with over 780 publications, including many high-impact publications in the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine. Richard was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to medical research in 2008, and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2015. He was awarded the Hercus Medal in 2016, the Beaven Medal in 2019, and the Rutherford Medal in 2024.

Supported by Royal Society Te Apārangi, the Manawatū Branch and the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand (MRINZ)