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Impact Report 2023 Among themwas Dr Kelly Zhou, an early career researcher at the University of Auckland’s Department of Physiology. She is using her First Fellowship to continue critical research into reducing brain injury in newborns due to oxygen deprivation at birth. Brain cooling is the only treatment currently available to these babies, and nearly half of those treated will still develop disability. Dr Zhou hopes a drug called Exendin-4 could be used alongside brain cooling to reduce brain damage. The drug was first extracted from the venom of the Gila monster, a lizard native to the southwestern United States. It is already used to treat type 2 diabetes, and has been shown to have striking anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective properties. FIRST FELLOWS MONSTER VENOMAND HOPE FOR VULNERABLE NEWBORNS First Fellowships are for outstanding emerging researchers to begin their first postdoctoral fellowship. Usually, two are awarded each year, one in each grant round. This year, due to the extremely high calibre of applications, four were given out. In total $824,491was granted to First Fellows.