Genomes and Multiomes

The Multiomics group led by members of the Data team at the Precision Medicine Lab is dedicated to advancing precision medicine, planetary health and space medicine, through integrative genomics and multiomics research. The group specialises in downstream analysis of whole-exome sequence (WES) data, RNA-Seq data, methylation datasets, metagenomic datasets to uncover biomarker candidates, classify molecular subgroups and explore pathways disease mechanisms. We use both established data analysis workflows as well as custom ones that are kept locally at the Lab. Most of our work revolves around human/patient samples, but we also look at plant and microbiome samples.

What is multiomics?

The genome refers to the entire DNA content (including all known and unknown genes) in any given cell of an organism. This can be human, animal, plant, microbe or a virus. Genomic datasets are produced using next-generation sequencing technologies. The same technologies are now also used to study the entire RNA content (transcriptomes), methylation patterns (epigenomes) and 16srRNA amplicons (metagenomes). Hence the word multiomes, and their study, i.e.multiomics.

Current projects include the interrogation of the multiomic stack from Project MOCCA that looks at oral cancer, NASA GeneLab data, sub-typing of medulloblastomas, and investigating microbiome associations with metabolomes. By merging cutting-edge bioinformatics with clinical applications, the group is contributing to the development of innovative diagnostics and therapeutics, thrusting forward our mission towards precision medicine for all.