Bioinformatics Seminar
Time: 11AM
Venue: Davis Auditorium and Teams
16 August 2022
Developing a Precision Healthcare framework for Indigenous Australians
Jimmy BreenTelethon Kids Institute
Genomic medicine represents a once-in-a-generation step change in health and medical sciences. Human genome reference assemblies underpin these recent advances in genomic medicine by enabling precision research into the genomic architecture of human development and disease. Despite these advances, many minority populations are not adequately represented in genomic research. This is exacerbated by the fact that the research community has largely failed to engage with these communities, resulting in massive inequalities in access to genomic research, clinical genetics and precision medicine. This is particularly true for Indigenous Australians. Our knowledge of chronic diseases that disproportionally impact Indigenous communities, namely Type-2 Diabetes and related Cardiometabolic disorders, is hampered by a lack of genomics research. In this talk, I will introduce our new research group Black Ochre Data Labs. Our lab is Aboriginal led and co-funded by the Telethon Kids Institute and ANU. We are currently running the PROPHECY Diabetes Multi-omics Cohort Study, and I will outline our objectives to develop a Precision Healthcare approaches for Indigenous Australians suffering from T2D.