Professor Rod Dunbar
Position: Professor, Maurice Wilkins Centre
Field: Human cellular immunology
Professor Rod Dunbar has a medical degree and a PhD, but has also worked as a musician, a writer and a script consultant for Shortland Street. He certainly typifies the creativity required to be a successful scientist.
Creativity and imagination in science
Professor Rod Dunbar (University of Auckland) gives his views on the myth of scientists wearing white coats and discusses the role of creativity and imagination in science.
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Rod completed his medical degree at Otago University and spent a year working as a doctor before taking time out to work as a freelance writer and musician. (His medical background allowed him to work as a story consultant on Shortland Street during its early days.) He then completed a PhD in Wellington, followed by six years at the University of Oxford, England. He returned to New Zealand 2002 under a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship and set up his laboratory at the University of Auckland in 2003.
Interdisciplinary research in New Zealand
Professor Rod Dunbar talks about working across traditional research disciplines to create research that is adventurous, innovative and new.
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Rod is the director of the Maurice Wilkins Centre (first formed in 2003), which brings together eight major research groups within the University of Auckland and a network of collaborators throughout the country.
Rod is enthusiastic about the research going on at the centre.
The unique thing we do in the Maurice Wilkins Centre is to try to put together people from different scientific disciplines to target diseases that are important to New Zealanders.
He says "We like to work in those spaces which are really very adventurous and very novel, because we believe that, for New Zealand to get ahead, we need innovation-driven science that is genuinely world-leading. New Zealanders are highly creative, as well as being very comfortable with new technology, so that can add up to some very innovative science. Our research centre aims to pull together all these local strengths.”
Collaboration in science is important
Science knowledge evolves through multi-disciplinary collaboration. For example, the Maurice Wilkins Centre brings together experts from different fields to develop knowledge and methods to treat disease.
Science as a social endeavour
Professor Rod Dunbar (University of Auckland) discusses science research as a collective rather than a solitary endeavour and looks at the myth of truth in science.
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Rod’s main research area is human cellular immunology, especially the development of therapies for cancer that utilise the immune system, such as vaccines against melanoma.
As part of his research work, he supervises PhD students undertaking full-time research projects, often sharing the supervision with senior scientists from other scientific fields. Hayley Reynolds was one such student and her research project is a great example of the cross disciplinary research that the Maurice Wilkins Centre specialises in.
Models in science
Professor Rod Dunbar discusses the importance of 3D models, such as Hayley Reynolds’ model of melanoma spread patterns, in medical and biological science.
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Related content
Read more what is cancer and some of the various imaging methods used to help with cancer treatment.
Understand why New Zealand skin cancer rates are so high, the different skin cancers and some of the risk factors.
Activity ideas
For those interested in protection from UV, see The face of melanoma – an activity that looks at lifestyle factors that contribute to skin cancer.
In the activity Characteristics of normal and cancerous cells students complete a graphic organiser to explore the characteristics of normal and cancerous cells.
Useful link
Watch this Royal Society Te Apārangi video from 2016: New therapies from human cells.
Visit the Maurice Wilkins Centre.
This article is based on information current in 2008 and 2026.
