The Liggins Institute is one of the world’s leading centres for research on fetal and child health, growth and development, breast cancer, epigenetics and evolutionary medicine.

The research approaches problems of children’s and women’s health from a number of angles designed to rapidly translate discoveries in basic science into clinical applications, strategies to improve public health and knowledge-based enterprises in the biotechnology sector.

Liggins research has shown that early life events leading to a poor start to life have far reaching consequences for the health and life prospects of the individuals who are affected and for the communities they live in.

Internationally recognised scientists, clinicians and research staff work at the Institute.

The Institute has cutting edge research facilities including clinical research space and specialist laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment.

It has important national and international collaborations:

• It is host partner of National Research Centre for Growth and development, one of New Zealand’s Centres of Research Excellence.
• It has research partnerships with the Universities of Cambridge and Southampton in the United Kingdom, the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences and universities and leading research centres in Europe and USA.

The Liggins Institute’s world class postgraduate research programme is based on multidisciplinary approaches, drawing on Institute expertise in molecular biology, epigenetics, physiology, endocrinology, clinical, evolutionary and public health medicine.

The Liggins promotes community awareness and understanding of science through public seminars and events and outreach to schools through the Liggins Education Network for Science.