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A New Zealand aid worker killed volunteering in war-torn Ukraine has had a final scientific research paper published posthumously, which has been hailed a breakthrough discovery in the field of DNA research.

Dr Andrew Bagshaw, 47, was killed alongside British volunteer Christopher Parry, 28, while trying to rescue an elderly woman in an area of intense military action in Soledar, when their car was hit by an artillery shell in January.

Now, just weeks after his death, a new study that the geneticist led during his time as a researcher within the University of Otago’s Department of Anatomy, has been published in the prestigious journal Nucleic Acids Research.

The study breaks new ground in showing that DNA sequences bend and twist in ways which were previously unknown.

Bagshaw’s paper was supervised by the Department of Anatomy’s Professor Neil Gemmell, who said the findings are an important technical discovery, spanning the fields of genetics, biochemistry and biophysics, with the potential to benefit human health in future years.

“Andrew’s remarkable work could lead to a better understanding of how genetic diseases arise and how they can be treated,” he said.

“It also opens up new avenues for research into the mechanics of DNA and could ultimately lead to the development of new technologies for manipulating DNA.”

Dr Andrew Bagshaw was killed in Ukraine earlier this year. File photo / AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka

He said the paper reflects the work of someone who was “exceptionally talented”, able to synthesise a great deal of information from subdisciplines and disciplines that “don’t always connect as directly as you might imagine”, to address how DNA bends and changes, in a new and innovative way.

“Andrew possessed extremely strong analytical skills and was easily one of the most extraordinary students I have trained,” Professor Gemmell said.

“This, his final body of work, is a lasting legacy to a scientist of immense promise and ability.”

Gemmell says Bagshaw’s work reveals that DNA is bending in a way nobody knew about before.

“This new insight is important because DNA ‘secondary structures’ can affect how genes are turned on and off, and the way a DNA sequence is bent influences its propensity to change or “mutate”.

The paper reveals that DNA sequences bend more in regions that are rich in the nucleotides cytosine and guanine, and that bending is particularly pronounced at the start of a sequence, the so-called 5′ end.

Bagshaw also observed that where sequences are predicted to bend the most is where changes or “mutations” in the DNA are more likely to happen. The findings help establish how DNA functions, how it changes over time, how it folds, and how it is packaged into cells.

Bagshaw, whose death was confirmed in late January, had been working as a volunteer in Ukraine since April last year.

He had completed a PhD in genetics at the University of Canterbury before joining the University of Otago, Christchurch’s, Department of Pathology and Biomedical Science in 2008.