Natalie Netzler: taking traditional medicine viral
Virologist Dr Natalie Netzler is researching the antiviral properties of traditional Sāmoan and Māori medicines in the pursuit of saving lives.
When Natalie Netzler had a headache as a child, she would go to her father, Gene, who would administer traditional Samoan massage – a fōfō.
“He had such big strong hands – I thought my skull was going to collapse under them,” says Natalie.
“But, as soon as he finished and took his hands away, the headache was gone.”
Her father, who was from the Sāmoan villages Moto’ōtua and Falealili, knew where all the pressure points were to alleviate the pain.
“It taught me the value of traditional medicine and the knowledge that has been passed down.”
Now, Natalie (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Hauā, Moto’ōtua, Falealili) is researching the antiviral properties of traditional Sāmoan and Māori medicines. It’s a career path the senior lecturer in immunology and virology never imagined as a young person. Although she had a supportive family, university wasn’t a common route and she lacked mentors to light the way.
“There’s that saying, ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’. There was no one to follow, so I’ve always just followed what I like,” she says.
At school in Whangārei, Natalie’s favourite subject was art, with biology a firm second, but her parents, Gene and mother Beatrice (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Hauā, Pākehā), steered her away from pursuing art as a career.
“I’m not sure if that is testament to my lack of artistic abilities, or they didn’t want me to be a starving artist, but my parents really encouraged me to go down the STEM route,” she recalls.
Her sister was studying teaching at the University of Waikato, where Natalie followed and completed her undergraduate and masters degrees in science.
“My masters research was on plant viruses and that lit a fire in terms of how fascinating viruses are – you can’t see them, yet they cause such devastation and disease.
“There are around 300 human viruses that cause disease, yet, despite all modern medicine, we lack tools to fight back. We have antivirals against 11 types of virus and vaccines for roughly 25.”
There was no one to follow, so I’ve always just followed what I like.
Working as an early-career scientist, however, was far from lucrative and Natalie’s sense of adventure drew her to South Korea to teach English, then to work in a French holiday resort, and later to London. It was there she met her Australian husband.
The pair moved to Sydney, where, missing science, Natalie took up a doctorate, researching broad-spectrum antivirals at the University of New South Wales. During her PhD, she had her daughter, who’s now eight.
“It’s a real privilege to be a mum,” she says, “and I think nothing teaches you more than motherhood.”
After graduating with her PhD, Natalie and her family returned to Auckland. She initially worked in biotech but found it didn’t resonate with her values.
“Often, it’s profits over people and following the market as opposed to the need, which don’t always align,” she says. “And you can’t really talk about what you are doing because of intellectual property [considerations], so it is difficult to engage with Māori and Pacific communities.”
Natalie sent her CV to “nearly every principal scientist in Auckland” and University of Auckland Professor Peter Shepherd came back to her, steering her toward an HRC Pacific postdoctoral fellowship in his molecular medicine lab. Under Peter’s mentorship, Natalie has been able to establish her own independent research team.
Soon after starting at the University, the Covid-19 pandemic arrived. Natalie saw the need for scientists who could span scientific, Māori and Pacific communities to dispel some of the misinformation and disinformation that was circulating. With Dr Chris Puli’uvea, a Tongan immunologist at Auckland University of Technology, she held more than 60 online fono and community information sessions during the pandemic. In 2023, they were both awarded the Cranwell Medal for excellence in communicating science to the public, by the New Zealand Association of Scientists.
“It is about presenting information in a way that you know is accessible and takes people along for the entire journey so they can make their own informed decisions,” says Natalie.
Relationships and trust built through that work have in turn supported her research.
Through her family, Natalie has a first-hand understanding of the limited access to medicines, including antivirals, in the Pacific. “The idea,” she says, “is to work in partnership with Māori and Pacific communities and traditional healers to find what antivirals are in the medicines they already use and can access easily.”
Natalie has developed her research in partnership with the Scientific Research Organisation of Sāmoa (SROS), which partners with a broad network of traditional healers in Sāmoa, and with Dr Helen Woolner, a Cook Islands chemist based at Victoria University of Wellington. They were initially funded by the Health Research Council and Te Niwha, an infectious diseases research platform, to look at traditional plants and a range of respiratory viruses.
“We found two traditional Sāmoan medicines that work against the virus that causes Covid, the Omicron variant. And those same two plant extracts worked against RSV and the cold-sore virus. This hints at broad-spectrum activity, which is exciting.”
In late 2025, Natalie won a $1.2 million fellowship from the Royal Society Te Apārangi to study the antiviral properties of traditional medicines used both in Sāmoa and rongoā Māori against the measles, dengue and Zika viruses. This work is being done in partnership with SROS and rongoā practitioners from Muriwhenua.
“It would be fantastic if we could interweave Indigenous innovation to try and solve these problems,” she says.
As she notes, while the MMR vaccine is the best way to prevent measles, mumps and rubella infection, not everyone can take the live-attenuated vaccine, which is not recommended for pregnant women or people with severe immune system issues.
“For those people, if they get infected with measles, it would be good to have an antiviral.”
In both Aotearoa New Zealand and Sāmoa, the research is governed independently by groups representing communities, environmental groups, government, clinicians, church leaders and traditional healers: “There are whole cultural frameworks to work within, and it’s important that these are consistent and trusted.”
It would be fantastic if we could interweave Indigenous innovation to try and solve these problems.
Protecting the intellectual property of the traditional healers is vital, she says, “because this is their livelihood”.
“We code-name all the medicines and keep the identities under lock and key. I test them blinded. We don’t put data in the cloud or send information over email unless it is all coded.”
Environmental issues are also important to consider, she says.
“What we don’t want is to find that there’s something antiviral in a Sāmoan plant, and then for big pharma to come in and plant 1,000 hectares. That would damage the land and damage the relationships.”
It’s not that traditional treatments need to be validated, says Natalie; they have been safely used by Indigenous healers for centuries. However, colonisation has introduced new diseases, such as measles and influenza, for which there were no Indigenous medicines.
All study findings will be fed back to the traditional healers, who could use that information to guide their use. In future, the active compounds could also be used to develop nutraceuticals and synthetic medicines that could provide income and be patented to protect Indigenous knowledge.
Natalie also aims to provide the role modelling and mentorship she didn’t have as a young person. She regularly hosts Māori and Pacific students in the lab.
“It’s about engaging with school students, and then once they’re here trying to keep their momentum going.”
Between standing on various committees to ensure there is a Māori and Pacific voice, and caring for her daughter, Natalie seldom has time to pursue her love of sketching and painting. However, her daughter does.
“She’s really into art, and I’m encouraging it, because I can just see how it helps her flourish. For myself, it is going to be a lifelong passion on the side.”
However, Natalie’s life goal is clear: “The main reason I get out of bed in the morning – and I think most researchers would be the same – is you want to leave the world in a better place than you found it.
“I would love it, just love it, if I could contribute to developing an antiviral that saves lives.”
– Jodi Yeats