Maria Saito Benz was awarded the New Investigator Award (Neonatology) at the 2017 The Perinatal Society of Australia and NZ (PSANZ) meeting in Canberra. PSANZ is an annual Australasian meeting covering Neonatology, Obstetrics and Basic Science as well as a raft of other related disciplines. Maria presented outcomes from her initial PhD study that is examining the effect of blood transfusion on regional tissue oxygenation and cardiovascular stability in preterm infants (the NIMO-AI project), work that was made possible using equipment purchased with donor funds administered by HBMRF. Her PhD project is being co-supervised by Dr Max Berry, a member of the Perinatal & Developmental Physiology Group at the University of Otago
This was a huge achievement for Maria and really important international recognition of the research that University of Otago is doing and HBMRF has supported.
