On Tuesday we celebrated 2 awardees of the Ross Craig Oncology Awards, Drs Amy Lovell and Grace Ross recipients of the 2025 and 2026 awards respectively.
Unhappily, Amy was not able to be with us to tell us of her research so Professor Cris Print stepped into the breach.
Dr Amy Lovell
Speaking on Amy’s behalf, Cris Print outlined a vision in which nutritional care is personalised alongside cancer therapies, supporting children throughout treatment and into later life. His presentation highlighted the value of enabling clinicians to build research careers while maintaining close connections with patients and clinical teams.
Amy’s work addresses a particular challenge: children undergoing cancer treatment are also growing and developing. Their nutritional needs cannot be treated as fixed. Appetite, physical activity, body composition and treatment demands can change considerably, sometimes between successive phases of care. The presentation emphasised that nutrition matters not only during treatment but also for long-term health. Amy’s research seeks to identify nutritional difficulties earlier and determine which children need additional support, rather than relying on a uniform approach.
Central to this approach is what Amy describes as adaptive nutritional profiling. Just as precision medicine uses information about a tumour to guide treatment, nutritional profiling would bring together a detailed picture of each child’s changing needs. This could include dietary intake, activity levels, growth, body composition and biological markers from blood or urine tests. The aim is to understand where nutritional support is falling short and tailor interventions accordingly, recognising that the right support may change as a child develops.
The fellowship has supported important groundwork for a wider national programme. Members were told that Amy has been developing protocols, building partnerships and considering the infrastructure needed to integrate precision nutrition into everyday childhood cancer care. Additional support from the Health Research Council of New Zealand has helped extend this work. Collaboration with paediatric oncologists is particularly important, ensuring that nutritional assessment develops alongside the increasingly sophisticated methods used to diagnose and treat cancer.
One practical ambition is to make nutrition a routine part of multidisciplinary treatment discussions. Alongside oncologists, nurses, pathologists, physiotherapists and families, nutritional expertise would help shape a coordinated care plan. Amy is also building connections across New Zealand and Australia, creating opportunities to share knowledge and develop a stronger research network. At the time of the presentation, the framework and partnerships were taking shape, with feasibility testing beginning at Starship before further development through wider collaborations.
The next stage is to test the approach, establish proof of principle and refine the programme in response to the findings. These are research goals rather than demonstrated outcomes, but the direction is clear: earlier recognition of nutritional needs and more precisely targeted support. The presentation offered members a tangible example of how Rotary funding can help launch sustained clinical research. Amy’s thanks to the club reflected the importance of that early investment in pursuing better treatment experiences and healthier futures for children with cancer.
Dr Grace Ross
Grace Ross gave engaging account of the path connecting her clinical work with a developing research career.
Under the title “From Labour Ward to Lab Bench”, she described how an early interest in science evolved into medical training, laboratory experience and a commitment to improving care through research. Now combining obstetrics and gynaecology training at Middlemore with academic opportunities, Grace thanked the club for helping her take the next steps towards investigating the links between endometriosis and certain ovarian cancers.
Her journey began in Dunedin, where an unsuccessful first application to medicine opened another door: a science degree in genetics. That grounding in genetics, developmental science and biochemistry became an important influence on her later interests. She subsequently entered medicine, completed clinical training in Wellington and began work in Tauranga before returning to Auckland for specialist training. Along the way, a summer studentship at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne provided further experience of laboratory research.
A master’s degree in clinical embryology at Oxford brought her scientific and clinical interests together. Arriving in Britain in September 2020 meant studying through pandemic restrictions, but Grace described the year as academically rewarding. Her dissertation involved laboratory research into endometriosis, helping establish the direction she now hopes to pursue. Back at Middlemore, the variety of her work spans pregnancy care, the labour ward and gynaecology, keeping her research questions closely connected to the experiences of patients.
With fellowship support and a new academic collaboration, Grace is investigating molecular differences between benign endometriosis and associated ovarian cancer. The project will draw on surgical tissue generously donated by patients and stored in a biobank. Planned methods include examining mutations, RNA sequencing and immunohistochemistry: complementary ways of studying genetic activity and features within tissue. By comparing samples, the research aims to clarify biological changes that may help explain why cancer develops in a small subset of cases.
The distinction between questions and findings is important. Grace presented this as work getting underway, not as a proven method for predicting cancer or changing routine care. Her longer-term hope is that better understanding could support more informed counselling, improved treatments and, potentially, more targeted monitoring for patients identified as having particular risks. The presentation did not suggest that endometriosis inevitably leads to cancer. Instead, it highlighted the need to understand more precisely which biological features matter and how that knowledge might eventually benefit patients.
Grace also spoke about strengthening connections between Middlemore, university researchers and specialist services, with the aim of improving access to research-informed care. She is currently combining clinical and academic work and hopes eventually to undertake a PhD or a more structured academic pathway. Her closing thanks underlined what Rotary’s support makes possible: protected opportunities to investigate questions arising directly from clinical practice. For members, the presentation showed how a fellowship can help bridge hospital care and laboratory discovery, while supporting research with a clear purpose.
At the conclusion of her address, Roger Gower gave both Cris Print for Amy and Grace a vote of thanks. Then the ceremonial cheque was handed to Grace to mark the award she received.
