Dianne Webster

Dianne Rosemary Webster is a New Zealand consultant paediatrician. She directed the New Zealand national newborn metabolic screening programme for more than twenty-five years. In 2007, Webster was appointed a Companion of the Queen's Service Order for services to public health, in particular paediatrics. In 2020, she was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to health, particularly paediatrics.

Academic career

Webster graduated from the University of Auckland with a degree in chemistry in 1972, and then completed a PhD in biochemistry, titled Interrelations between purine and pyrimidine metabolism in man, at the Guys Hospital Medical School, King's College London in 1981. Webster continued her doctoral studies on the purine/pyrimidine metabolism and examined the enzyme deficiency disease orotic aciduria and as a research assistant and postdoctoral researcher. In the 2020 New Year Honours, Webster was appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to health, particularly paediatrics.

In 2008 Webster was awarded the International Society for Neonatal Screening's Robert Guthrie Award.

Selected works