Sir Richard Faull

By Rose Davis

From humble beginnings as a baby in a box in the corner of his parents' general store in rural Taranaki, Distinguished Professor Sir Richard Faull launched a stellar career in neuroscience.

He is famous for globally significant breakthroughs in brain research and winning awards many only dream about. In 2007, Sir Richard won New Zealand’s highest scientific accolade, the Rutherford medal,and he was knighted for services to brain research a decade later.

For the past 16 years, he has been founding director of the University of Auckland Centre for Brain Research, but he will soon shift into a part-time role. The 80-year-old is also a brilliant storyteller.

His parents, Wilfred and Phyllis Faull, had no university education. Born in 1945, the second of their five sons, Sir Richard’s early years might sound incongruous with his later trailblazing success as a brain scientist. But the values he learned in his childhood echo through his life and work.

From as early as Sir Richard can remember, he pitched in with his parents and brothers in the general store they ran, wrapping warm loaves of bread and marking them with customers’ names first thing in the morning, measuring out flour from sacks and vinegar from barrels, and helping deliver groceries to people’s homes after school.

“We knew everyone in the community. We would go into their homes and see the diversity of the families – Māori, Pakeha, some had money, and some were extremely poor and had dirt floors.

“My mum and dad were very socially conscious and taught us that we were placed on this earth to help people,” he says.

His father was of Ngāti Rāhiri and Te Āti Awa descent, but Sir Richard didn’t identify as Māori during his childhood. He learned strict Christian values from his close, Anglican family, and that faith remains today.

As a child, his love of maths, science and biology began to grow.

“I was a bit of a nerd and a bookworm. I pleaded with mum to have a desk in my room, which I shared with my brother. So we got an old bed-end and used that as the desk-top and the posts for the desk legs."

Numerous cousins visited the Faull family farm, with the store on the corner. “We had lots of fun times, getting up to mischief, building dams in the creek near the old orchard, where there were apples, walnuts, ferns, pungas…”

He grabbed every opportunity to learn about cars and was thrilled when the electrician across the road taught him electronics how to build a radio. These practical skills later became vital for building equipment to study rat brains.

From the three-room Tikorangi School, he moved on to Waitara High School, where he taught himself sciences and “fell in love” with the knowledge he discovered. After winning dux in 1962, he went on to win a Taranaki scholarship that paid for his university studies.

Auckland was the first university he studied at, before heading to Otago University in Dunedin.  “I worked in the freezing works at Waitara in the holidays and with my scholarship, that was enough to pay my way through – otherwise I couldn’t go to university.

“I worked in the fellmongery – that’s where they treated the skins of about 13,000 sheep a day – and it stank, it was terrible, but it was good money and you got to meet the local freezing workers.”

In 1966, Sir Richard met “the two loves of my life” – the brain and his future wife, Diana, the daughter of Archdeacon Douglas Millar of Dunedin and a teacher. “We met at a student party. I saw her from afar and it was love at first sight. I got her phone number from a friend who knew her – that was the best decision of my life.

“That same year, I saw the human brain for the first time as a third-year medical student and I thought ‘that’s just incredible’.”

Sir Richard decided to take a year out to research the basal ganglia in rat brains for a Bachelor of Medical Science. He hoped to learn more about the connections involved in Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases. He had to make his own equipment to conduct his experiments, building a machine with electrodes and developing tissue-staining techniques.

The hard mahi was worth it – he discovered a new pathway from the basal ganglia to the thalamus. “The excitement of scientific discovery turned me on.

“My research was published in a top journal of the day and I got requests from experts around the world for a copy of my paper – all the big names. I couldn’t believe it.”

After completing his Bachelor of Medical Science in 1967 and Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 1970, he married Diana and became a house surgeon in Auckland. He considered a career as a neurosurgeon, but realised more research was needed to expand the surgical possibilities for the brain.

A fellowship from the former Medical Research Council allowed him to do a groundbreaking PhD at the newly established medical school in Auckland. Using rat brains, he discovered new connections between the cerebellum and spinal cord. His findings were celebrated, because they helped neuroscientists understand the functional organization of the brain, revealing the motor pathways in rats and humans. 

After gaining his PhD in neuroanatomy in 1975, Sir Richard and Diana set off to the United States, where he worked with leading brain experts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA’s Ames Research Centre. A Harkness Fellowship covered the cost of his post-doctoral studies overseas – but the money ran out before his research was finished.

Seeking help back home, he was offered $1,000 from the Taranaki Māori Trust Board. Initially, he was reluctant to accept the grant, because he didn’t feel 'Māori enough'. “They said ‘You are Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Rāhiri. We want to help you and one day, you will come home to Taranaki and look after the people’.”

A Medical Research Council fellowship funded his travel around brain research institutes in Europe and the United Kingdom, before he landed back at the University of Auckland as a senior lecturer of anatomy in 1978.

By examining the brains of people after they died, Sir Richard was able to definitively identify Huntington’s. “Families were so grateful to have the final word. Mostly it was ‘yes’, but occasionally it was ‘no’, and they were ecstatic.

“I had been studying the rat brain and they were giving me the brain of their mum or dad - and that was the most valuable gift they could give to science.”

Sir Richard discovered a high level of variation in the brains of people who had died with Huntington’s that was at odds with what textbooks of the day described. The range of patterns of cell death was perplexing.

A colleague, Professor Lynette Tippett, suggested gathering the life stories of people with Huntington’s, whose brains had been donated, to try to understand the variation. By putting together symptom histories from families and clinicians and patterns of cell death in the brains, the team was able to make a startling discovery.

“We showed what parts of the basal ganglia are involved in mood and which parts are involved in movement. This was revolutionary.”

By the early 1990s, Sir Richard had gathered about 50 brains and asked the Neurological Foundation if they might fund a human brain bank. In 1994, they approved his request and the Neurological Foundation Human Brain Bank now holds tissue from more than 1000 brains. It’s an invaluable resource for scientists researching neurodegenerative diseases ranging from Alzheimer’s to motor neurone disease.

Around the same time, he helped introduce the whakanoa – a spiritual blessing ceremony – so Māori medical students could feel more comfortable working with human body tissues from cadavers. The ceremony was the first to consider tikanga Māori in a human anatomy laboratory in Aotearoa.

He’s often away, giving talks around Aotearoa to inform communities about recent research on brain diseases. During a talk in his hometown of Taranaki, he found a way to fulfil the prophecy of Te Āti Awa kaumatua who had said he would one day return to help their people. 

A whanau from Te Āti Awa affected by Huntington’s asked for his help in living with the tragic disease. Sir Richard was overjoyed to find a way to give back to his community. He began holding annual trips to Taranaki, where he meets with Māori whanau and holds hui on marae.

With the Centre for Brain Research’s Deputy Director Māori Dr Makarena Dudley, Sir Richard has visited 17 marae from Kaitaia to Invercargill, discussing the best ways to look after people with dementia and other brain diseases. In 2023, in a ceremony at Waipapa marae, University of Auckland, Sir Richard was bestowed a korowai - feather cloak - and a tokotoko named Aumangea, crafted by master carver Rangi Bailey of Te Āti Awa .

“They said ‘now you are a rangatira’. It was so humbling, it made me cry,” he says.

When he shifts into a part time role later this year, Sir Richard plans to spend more time with Diana, their three daughters, twin sons, and 11 grandchildren. He will be closely watching for breakthroughs in neuroscience, which he predicts might emerge from gene therapies, which target the underlying genetic causes of brain disease.

“We also need to look more at the prevention of brain diseases. Basically, what’s good for your heart is good for your brain – good food, exercise and social interaction.”

His advice to young researchers is to let their heart lead the way.

“There will always be obstacles along the way – they’re there to test your resolve for your ambition in life.

“Take risks, because they will open up opportunities you never dreamed of,” he says.

Unequivocally positive