Sir Peter Gluckman is the First Chief Science Advisor to the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key. He is a highly regarded scientist and has made a fantastic contribution to medicine especially in his specialized field of Pediatrics. He is a very inspiring person on the whole with many notable achievements (some listed below). Another achievement that marks Sir Peter out as a top scientist is that he is the only New Zealander to be elected to go into the Institute of Medicine of the United States National Academies of Science.

 

Peter first went to the University of Otago and the university of Auckland to study Hormonal biology. But two years into his medical training Peter realized that his real interest lay in research. Peter then spent 4 years at the University of California. He was there at first as postdoctoral fellow then as he spent more time at the university he became an Assistant Professor, where he studied very advanced areas of Hormonal Biology.

 

Peter returned to New Zealand in 1980 where he set up a research group that was funded by the Medical Research Council. Peter’s team comprised of 60 researchers who heavily analyzed advanced hormonal biology tied in with neuroscience for 17 years from 1980. Peter’s work didn’t go un-noticed and his work is highly respected both nationally and internationally. This in turn lead to Peter being chosen to be the Dean of the faculty of Medicine and Health Science for Auckland University.

 

Peter resigned from his Dean position in 2001 to set up the Liggins institute which is one of the world’s leading organizations for research into a number of areas including: fetal and child health, nutrition, growth and development, breast cancer, epigenetics and evolutionary medicine. Sir Peter and the Liggins institution were funded to set up a National Research Center for Growth and Development. The research center was an amazing success and allowed the findings to be projected internationally. As well as these impressive institutions Peter also developed a programme of involving school children in science experiments called LENScience; Peter did this to stop Science from being immune from the community, thus making it accessible as well as digestible.

 

Peter is now the Chief Science Advisor for New Zealand. Peter has now stepped down from being the Director of the Liggins Institute and the head of the National Research Center for Growth and Development. He still maintains an active role in research and continues with his work in researching the developmental origins of health and disease, epigenetics, evolutionary medicine and the publics understanding of science.

 

Sir Peter Gluckman is an amazing New Zealander as he has advanced scientific research in many different areas in NZ especially that of Endocrinology and growth and development. There will have been many occasions whereby funding would have been difficult to obtain in order to carry out these research programmes, but by Sir Peter's determination, intellect and hard work he has actively ensured that Public Health in New Zealand remains a high priority on the political agenda. He has also founded and developed various institutions and organizations. Through his many contributions, time and effort to the study and advancement of scientific research Sir Peter Gluckman truly is a inspirational Kiwi.