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Undiagnosed Diseases Program (UDP) and Bringing the benefits of precision medicine to children in Western Australia

We have started a project utilising whole genome sequencing of undiagnosed children living in WA to provide a definitive diagnosis. A major challenge here is that the role and functions of the inter-genic regions of our genome (the remaining 98%) are relatively poorly understood.

An unbiased exploration of the human regulatory landscape

We are made up of hundreds of different cell types carrying out a diverse range of functions essential for organism survival. All the information required to specify the morphology, function and response to stimuli of these cells is encoded in identical copies of the genome. The process of gene regu

Centre for Advanced Cancer Genomics (CACG)

Current technologies to understand which genes are turned on or off only work on large amounts of biological samples. As a consequence all measurements we receive represent averages across multiple cell types present in the sample. The situation is comparable to studying the contents of a bowl of fr

McCusker Charitable Foundation grant in support of the Undiagnosed Diseases Program

The Kids Research Institute Australia congratulates Prof Gareth Baynam and Dr Timo Lassmann on their grant over three years from the McCusker Charitable Foundation.

Common and Rare Genetic Variants That Could Contribute to Severe Otitis Media in an Australian Aboriginal Population

Our goal was to identify genetic risk factors for severe otitis media (OM) in Aboriginal Australians.

Functional validation of variants of unknown significance using CRISPR gene editing and transcriptomics: A Kleefstra syndrome case study

There are an estimated > 400 million people living with a rare disease globally, with genetic variants the cause of approximately 80% of cases. Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) rapidly identifies genetic variants however they are often of unknown significance.

A precision medicine approach to interpret a GATA4 genetic variant in a paediatric patient with congenital heart disease

Patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) are identified in 1% of live births. Improved surgical intervention means many patients now survive to adulthood, the corollary of which is increased mortality in the over-65-year-old congenital heart disease population. In the clinic, genetic sequencing increasingly identifies novel genetic variants in genes related to CHD.

Mining single-cell data for cell type-disease associations

A robust understanding of the cellular mechanisms underlying diseases sets the foundation for the effective design of drugs and other interventions. The wealth of existing single-cell atlases offers the opportunity to uncover high-resolution information on expression patterns across various cell types and

A corpus of GA4GH phenopackets: Case-level phenotyping for genomic diagnostics and discovery

The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) Phenopacket Schema was released in 2022 and approved by ISO as a standard for sharing clinical and genomic information about an individual, including phenotypic descriptions, numerical measurements, genetic information, diagnoses, and treatments. A phenopacket can be used as an input file for software that supports phenotype-driven genomic diagnostics and for algorithms that facilitate patient classification and stratification for identifying new diseases and treatments.

Coupling of response biomarkers between tumor and peripheral blood in patients undergoing chemoimmunotherapy

Platinum-based chemotherapy in combination with anti-PD-L1 antibodies has shown promising results in mesothelioma. However, the immunological mechanisms underlying its efficacy are not well understood and there are no predictive biomarkers to guide treatment decisions.