Emeritus Professor Dick Bellamy is a virologist and molecular cell biologist whose research career centred on rotaviruses, the principal agents of diarrhoeal disease in young children.
Over his tenure as a full-time researcher, he worked in the general area of the molecular Biology of virus infection and the application of recombinant methods to the characterisation of viral gene products: much of this work involving a network of collaborators in Australia and the USA and was supported by the NZ Health Research Council and other local and international Agencies.
Dick is a Fellow of the Academy of the Royal Society of New Zealand and recently retired From the University of Auckland after serving 10 years as Dean of Science. Before that he was founding Director of the School of Biological Sciences at the University.
Outside direct University involvements, Dick is a former Director of Auckland UniServices Ltd and its subsidiary DNA Diagnostics Ltd- which he helped found. Dick is a former Director of the Forest Research Institute (now Scion), was an Auckland Regional Councillor and is a former President of the Auckland Museum Council. Dick currently serves on three Auckland Uniservices Return on Science Investment Committees.
Dick maintains a strong interest in Medical Research and recognises the pressing need to support more research which targets NZ’s many mental health problems. Addressing Mental Health issues requires us to attract the resources necessary to support our own talented local researchers who are focusing on what is now one of NZ’s most important health issues.
