Merilyn Manley-Harris

Merilyn Manley-Harris (born 1948 (age 45)) is a New Zealand chemist, and is a professor emeritus at the University of Waikato, specialising in carbohydrate chemistry, particularly relating to mānuka honey.

Academic career
Manley-Harris taught in England and Malta, before earning a Bachelor of Science degree at James Cook University in Australia. She taught chemistry at Townsville Grammar School, before completing a PhD, aged 45, titled Oligo- and polysaccharides formed during the thermolysis of sucrose at the University of Montana in 1993. Manley Harris then moved to the University of Waikato, where she was initially appointed jointly at Scion. She was promoted to full professor in 2019.

Manley-Harris led the team that in 2009 identified the precursor to antibacterial chemicals in mānuka honey. It was already known that levels of methylglyoxal (MGO) in honey were associated with antibacterial activity, and that these levels tended to increase during storage of the honey. Manley-Harris's discovery that the MGO was being produced from dihydroxyacetone (DHA) allowed the development of a test for DHA levels in batches of honey. Beekepers would be able to test DHA levels to predict which batches would go on to have high levels of DHA, and thus would be worth storing, and which batches to sell young.

In 2021, Manley-Harris was part of the team, led by Mike Clearwater, that discovered how mānuka flowers produce the precursor to the active ingredient in mānuka honey. In 2023, she was accorded the title of professor emeritus by the University of Waikato.

While she is best-known for her work on honey, Manley-Harris has also researched how to use dental enamel to determine the origin of possums, the toxicity of karaka berries, antibiotic retention in soils and the structure of biochar.