Rate My Professor Juliet Pullar

Dr. Juliet Pullar serves as a Research Fellow in the Department of Pathology and Biomedical Science at the University of Otago, Christchurch, within the Health Sciences Division. She is affiliated with the Mātai Hāora - Centre for Redox Biology and Medicine. Pullar earned her PhD at the University of Otago, Christchurch, under the supervision of Professors Margreet Vissers and Christine Winterbourn, focusing on thiol biochemistry and targets of the neutrophil-derived oxidant hypochlorous acid in endothelial cells. She holds a BSc (Hons) from the University of Canterbury and a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Health from the University of Otago, completed in 2010. Following her PhD, Pullar received a New Zealand Science and Technology Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Centre for Free Radical Research with Professor Mark Hampton, studying the redox regulation of apoptosis. Her subsequent work with Professor Vissers investigates the biological functions of vitamin C, including human studies on its pharmacokinetics.

Pullar's research expertise includes cell biology, cell culture, flow cytometry, ELISA, HPLC for ascorbate analysis, spectrophotometry, microscopy, neutrophil function, and western blotting. Current projects examine red blood cell ascorbate as an indicator of vitamin C status, vitamin C pharmacokinetics in skin, its role in chronic wound healing, and ascorbate's modulation of macrophage phenotype in immune cells. She teaches part of the Bachelor of Biomedical Sciences (Honours) programme, has co-supervised three summer students, and currently co-supervises one PhD student and one Masters student. Key publications include Pullar et al. (2025) 'Improved human skin vitamin C levels and skin function following dietary intake of kiwifruit: A high vitamin C food' (Journal of Investigative Dermatology); Topham et al. (2024) 'Blood vitamin C levels of patients receiving immunotherapy and relationship to monocyte subtype and epigenetic modification' (Epigenomes); Vissers and Pullar (2022) 'Re-opening old wounds: Vitamin C and wound healing deserve a re-examination' (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition); Carr et al. (2021) 'Neutrophils isolated from septic patients exhibit elevated uptake of vitamin C and normal intracellular concentrations despite a low vitamin C milieu' (Antioxidants); and Pearson et al. (2021) 'Peroxiredoxin 2 oxidation reveals hydrogen peroxide generation within erythrocytes during high-dose vitamin C administration' (Redox Biology).