As part of an already vibrant relationship between Macquarie and CSIRO – Australia’s national science agency – the University has established an on-campus collaboration space for CSIRO to visit and co-design exciting new research opportunities. This will see greater innovation and collaboration with the CSIRO Transformational Bioinformatics group.

Faculty of Science and Engineering Executive Dean, Professor Magnus Nydén emphasises the faculty’s commitment to research and education that will empower growth for all in the new digital and circular economy.

“The collaboration with the CSIRO group is very well aligned with this vision which makes us very excited,” he says.

The group, led by Dr Denis Bauer, will collaborate as integral members of the Applied BioSciences’ community, as well as maintain and explore further research opportunities across multiple departments in the Faculty of Science and Engineering and the Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences.

“We are excited to be able to be physically part of Macquarie University when collaborating,” says Dr David Hansen, CEO, CSIRO’s Australian e-Health Research Centre.

“It will enable us to foster new collaborations in the life sciences and strengthen our existing collaborations in health informatics.”

“The Australian e-Health Research Centre is committed to increasing collaborations with Universities and I am looking forward to the science and impact which will come from this close engagement.”

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research, Professor Sakkie Pretorius echoed this excitement and welcomed Dr Bauer and her team to campus.

“This collaboration offers many exciting opportunities for research and I am sure it will pave the way for similar arrangements in the future.”

Current research areas

Human Health
Our genome holds information for tailoring treatment choices as well as our future disease risks. However, unlocking this information is difficult as there are 3 billion letters that make up our genetic code and any combination of them may hold the critical information. The CSIRO Transformational Bioinformatics group is developing solutions for identifying disease genes. By developing cloud-based solutions they enable the world’s largest genomic consortia to analyse their data in unprecedented detail to unlock new interventions and make disease prevention more effective.

The group is also working on novel treatment solutions in particular gene therapy. Helping develop the basic science and tailoring the approach to an individual’s genome, the group is working towards making “genetic surgery” a viable treatment for currently uncurable and life-threatening genetic diseases. Part of this will be the capability development of delivering the “genetic scalpel” with pinpoint accuracy to the right genomic position and the affected tissue only, which will require effective molecular packaging and delivery.

Biosecurity
The group is also active in genomic analysis application in the biosecurity space. Specifically, the group has developed approaches for quantifying the genetic distance of individual virus isolates in the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which allows to identify and compare the genetic “fingerprint” of the different virus versions that are emerging around the world. This approach can also be applied to monitor and identify Gene Drive approaches which will help manage invasive species or reduce the disease burden from insect.