Vale Professor Alistair Gunn: Legacy of an Auckland Researcher Who Transformed Treatment for Newborn Brain Injury

We join the many tributes across Aotearoa New Zealand and around the world honouring the life of Professor Alistair Gunn.

Professor Gunn’s research led to the development of therapeutic hypothermia (cooling the brain after oxygen deprivation): a simple, safe and now globally adopted treatment that protects newborn babies’ brains after oxygen deprivation at birth. His work has helped save countless lives and enabled millions of children to grow and thrive without disability. 

For us at AMRF, this legacy is deeply personal. Professor Gunn acknowledged the Foundation’s early support in helping his team develop the first cooling machines and undertake the critical studies that made this breakthrough possible. Those studies established how and when cooling could protect the newborn brain, laying the foundation for the international clinical trials that followed and for a treatment now used around the world.

He once described therapeutic hypothermia as “an overnight success, after 20 years of preclinical research”—a reflection of his persistence, scientific rigour, and commitment to improving outcomes for babies and their families.

Behind this extraordinary impact was not only scientific brilliance, but a deeply human presence. Alistair is remembered by colleagues around the world as kind, generous, quietly determined and endlessly curious. He was known as a mentor who gave his time freely, a collaborator who lifted others, and a person whose warmth was felt in every interaction.

Tributes shared across the global research and clinical community speak to a life defined not just by achievement, but by character. He was known to be a brilliant colleague, an outstanding researcher and human being, humble and supportive, and someone whose work profoundly improved the life chances of so many. Others recall his encouragement of early-career researchers, his thoughtful questions, and the genuine care he showed to those around him.

His legacy will continue in the clinicians who carry forward his work, the researchers he inspired, and the families whose lives are forever changed because of his dedication.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to Professor Gunn’s family, friends, and colleagues. His legacy will endure in the lives of the children he helped save and the field of research he helped shape.