Current Award Winners

Professor Lyall Hanton holds the Mellor Chair at the University of Otago. He is one of the original inventors of the wound healing medical hydrogel, chitogel (a modern chitosan based post surgery wound healing gel), which began development around 2005. Chitogel is a “two-pot” hydrogel formed by combining succinylated chitosan and dextran aldehyde through imine linkages. Professor Hanton has been actively involved in the commercialisation of Chitogel and is an ex-offico member and advisor to the Board of Directors of Chitogel Limited which was registered in December 2014. The manufacture of Chitogel began in Wellington the following year. The company is now moving into a growth phase and currently employs 14 people with sales representatives in New Zealand, Australia and the US, and has plans for further expansion globally. For more information about Chitogel click here