Kia rere te reo pērā i te pekapeka - Let the language soar as the bats do
18 September 2024
In celebration of Māori Language Week (te wiki o te reo Māori), Dr Alice Eruera (NgāPuhi, University of Otago and member of Te Rōpu Kōkiri) has reported on her recent MWC supported trip in Te Reo Māori.
With support from Category 4 of the MWC Flexible Research Programme (Access to specialised training and facilities), Alice visited the Ian Holmes Imaging Center, at the Bio21 Molecular Science and Biotechnology Institute at the University of Melbourne.
Alice used their Talos Artica and Titan Krios cryo-transmission electron microscopes to collect datasets of spike proteins from bat coronaviruses. Spike proteins are the molecules which facilitate the entry of viruses into the host cell. The coronavirus specimens were from an alphacoronavirus isolated from native New Zealand long-tail bats (pekapeka in te reo Māori) (GenBank: OR248862.1) and from a bat betacoronavirus closely related to SARS-CoV-2 (GenBank: OP963576.1), the causative agent of COVID-19.
Watch her video in Te Reo Māori for more details:
