W01: Clinical Informatics Symposium

Simon Sadedin (MCRI), Elise Richards (PopGen), Wishva Herath (QLD Health), Natasha Tamasese (PopGen), Michael Hall (Uni Melb), Leah Roberts (QUT)

Time and Location

Time:

Thursday 7 December 2023 09:00-16:00 AEST

Location:

Room 216, Prentice Building (42), University of Queensland St Lucia Campus, Brisbane

This Symposium/Workshop has just been accepted as an ABACBS workshop.
Please check this page in future for full details.

Agenda

Location map: https://tinyurl.com/uq42-216

Following the ABACBS conference, join us as we explore the intersection of
bioinformatics, clinical science, and transformative patient care.

The world of genomics stands on the precipice of remarkable breakthroughs,
with our capacity to delve into the molecular realm and extract meaningful
insights driving tremendous potential to improve human health. However,
transitioning these insights into real-world outcomes demands highly skilled and
dedicated professionals who can bring the rigour, clinical knowledge and deep
insight required to turn research breakthroughs into clinical applications.
This symposium brings together leaders in the field who have dedicated their
careers to bridging the gap between research and tangible health outcomes.
Whether you are an active professional in clinical informatics or data science, or
simply inspired to understand more about how research breakthroughs become
clinical reality, this symposium will bring you in contact with the leading people
and cutting edge work in the field.

Associate Professor Amy Jennison, an authority on bacterial pathogens and
their molecular detection, will delve into the tangible benefits of bioinformatics
in Public Health Microbiology. From bacterial virulence to whole genome
sequencing applications, she’ll unravel the intricacies of pathogenic detection
and its broader implications for public health.

Associate Professor Mark Cowley, renowned for his work in translational
bioinformatics and childhood cancer, has been at the forefront of merging
genomics with precision medicine. With a career marked by pioneering efforts
like the development of clinical-grade whole genome analysis and infrastructure
for the Zero Childhood Cancer clinical trial, he will share his learnings on the
transformative potential of bioinformatics.

Dr. Kelvin Tuong of the Ian Frazer Centre stands at the nexus of immunology
and bioinformatics. With a keen focus on paediatric immunity during cancer, Dr.
Tuong will shed light on how computational methodologies are uncovering
intricate details about immune cell development and function.

Event Theme and Session Topics

Symposium Theme: "Molecular Frontiers: Pioneering Pathways to Clinical Solutions"

Session 1 (9:10-10:25): From Data to Impact: Extracting the Full Potential from
Genomic Data to Revolutionise Patient Care
Morning tea
Session 2 (11:00-12:15): Navigating Pathogenic Mysteries: Bioinformatics in
Microbial Public Health
Lunch
Session 3 (1:15-14:30): Decoding Immunity: Computational Approaches in
Oncology
Afternoon tea

Target Audience

● Early to mid-career researchers eager to grasp the future of clinical
informatics.
● Professionals intrigued by the journey of molecular data to impactful
clinical outcomes.
● Aspiring leaders considering a path into clinical informatics and its
transformative potential.
● Professionals involved in the day to day operational challenge of
implementing data driven informatics into health care.
● Clinicians interested in the ever-evolving interface of bioinformatics and
patient care.

Organising Committee

● Simon Sadedin, Ph.D. (Head of Clinical Bioinformatics, Murdoch
Children’s Research Institute and Victorian Clinical Genetics Services, VIC)
● Leah Roberts, Ph.D. (Group Lead, Microbial Genomics, Lecturer in
Bacteriology, Queensland University of Technology, QLD)
● Michael Hall, Ph.D (Research Fellow, Department of Microbiology and
Immunology, Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, The
University of Melbourne, VIC)
● Elise Richards (Associate Director, The Centre for Population Genomics,
Garvan Institute of Medical Research & Murdoch Children’s Research
Institute, VIC)

This Symposium/Workshop has just been accepted as an ABACBS workshop.
Please check this page in future for full details.

Speakers

James McCafferty

James is the Chief Information Officer at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, where he oversees IT strategy, delivery, and operations in support of the Institute's objectives. With a diverse background spanning commercial, higher education, and research sectors, James has been dedicated to driving digital transformation and business change throughout his career.

Natalie Thorne

Dr Natalie Thorne leads the multidisciplinary team behind Genomical, a clinical software-as-a-service platform used by six medical laboratories to manage genomic information for accredited genomic testing. Her expertise spans multiple disciplines: from healthcare, bioinformatics and pathology to software development and data governance.  Nat is passionate about bringing genomics into digital health systems, so that our DNA blueprint can safely and efficiently inform our healthcare when we need it. Last year she was named one of 25 Brilliant Women in Digital Health and one of 25 across Australia for the WILD program for women leaders in STEM.

Denis Bauer

Dr Denis Bauer is an internationally recognised expert in bioinformatics and artificial intelligence, who is passionate about improving human health research by understanding the secrets in our genome using cloud-computing technology. She is an adjunct associate professor at Macquarie University and AWS Data Hero. She was awarded Brilliant Women in Digital Health (2021) and Women in AI Innovation Award (2022). Her achievements include developing an open-source, artificial intelligence-based cloud-service that accelerates disease research and contributing to national and international initiatives for genomic medicine funded with over $500M. In 2020 she won the CSIRO Collaboration Medal for her work analyzing COVID-19 genome for vaccine development and molecular contact tracing.

Marie-Jo Brion

Dr Marie-Jo Brion is Data Manager for Australian Genomics where she leads the data governance and sharing of national genomics cohorts, and delivery of national genomic data strategies. Dr Brion managed the first 5 years of the Australian Genomics data projects, which progressed national approaches to collecting, storing, and sharing genomic and medical data, from the Australian Genomics Flagship cohorts. Prior to managing genomic data projects, Marie-Jo obtained her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Bristol UK, and spent 12 years as a research scientist analysing health data in populations from the UK, Brazil, Australia and USA. She currently leads the delivery of the National Approach to Genomic Information Management (NAGIM) Implementation Recommendations.

Jonathan Hall

Life Whisperer Founder Dr Jonathan Hall FRSA, is Co-Founder and Director of the cutting-edge AI/ML company Presagen , MIT Technology Review Innovator under 35 (APAC) 2019, and was named among the InDaily 40 Under 40 Business Leaders in South Australia, receiving the Entrepreneurial Award in 2019. Jonathan Hall has dual PhDs in theoretical particle physics and nanotechnology specialising in biosensing in embryos, both of which have received awards in their respective fields. Jonathan chaired the international IONS-KOALA Conference on optics, atomic and laser applications. Jonathan was a member of one of the few teams to reach the inaugural CSIRO ON Prime pre-accelerator program for commercialisation in Sydney, and simultaneously won the Australian eChallenge awards for both Medical Innovations and Research Commercialisation for the invention of Life Whisperer.

Robert MacLeay

Robert McLeay founded and led the scientific team behind DoseMeRx, the world’s leading individualised dosing tool – used in over 10 countries by more than 7,000 clinicians, and having calculated in excess of a million doses.  He completed his PhD at the University of Queensland in 2012 in bioinformatics focusing on tool developing using machine learning techniques. Applying skills and techniques from the world of bioinformatics, he crossed over to industry, and was forced to rapidly learn about commercialisation of a medical device, ranging from regulatory bodies (FDA, EMA, TGA) to how to raise venture capital to navigating its acquisition by Tabula Rasa Healthcare (NASDAQ: TRHC) in 2019.

Robert has received a range of awards for his work on DoseMeRx, including from Advance Queensland, ANDHealth, the Austraian , Asia-Pacific ICT Awards, and the University of Queensland Colleges’ Alumni Award 2022.

During his time at DoseMeRx, Robert developed an interest in clinical medicine, and has completed his MD and entered clinical practice. He recently has started foundational work on new startup in the ML/AI space in healthcare.

Lutz Krause

A/Prof Lutz Krause is passionate about improving health throughdevelopment of innovative therapeutics and diagnostics. He utilises mathematicsand artificial intelligence to advance understanding of human biology andimprove patient health. Lutz has worked in both academia and industry,including Nestlé, QIMR Berghofer, and the University of Queensland.  

 

In 2018, Lutz joined Microba Life Sciences, a Brisbane based company, that advanceshealth through precision microbiome science. Here, he has discovered novel therapeutic candidatesusing a data driven, AI supported approach. Several of these candidates areprogressing through pre-clinical development, with the lead candidate being inclinical stage. 

Arthur Hsu

Arthur worked inacademia for over 12 years before moving to the industry. He joined CSL in 2019and is a Senior Scientist and Manager of Computational Genomics in CSL’sBioinformatics team. His team works on the early discovery stage ofpharmaceutical development, spanning several key areas, ranging from insilico target discovery, antibody genomics, gene editing and gene therapyinformatics to cell line and animal model genomic characterisation.Particularly in the gene therapy area, Arthur’s team has contributed to the FDAapproval of the gene therapy for haemophilia B, Hemgenix, that is now marketedin US and Europe. He is also the project scientific coordinator of a new genetherapy program targeting rare disease, bringing state-of-the-art genomics tothe project.

Tuc Nguyen

T.V Nguyen received his MSc in Intelligent Systems in 2011 and his Ph.D. in 2015from School of Computing and Information Technology, University of Wollongong. From 2015 to 2017, he worked as a machine learning engineer at Intelligent Systems Lab, University of Wollongong. From 2017 to 2019, he was senior machine learning engineer at Vin-group JSC. After that he joined Life Whisperer Diagnostics/Presagen as a Senior AI/Deep learning engineer. His research interests &expertise include computer vision, deep learning, traditional machine learning, distributed systems, decentralized federated learning, data cleansing and data analysis. His recent works were applied to a range of medical record/image problems such as embryo viability prediction, genetic modification identification, competent oocyte prediction which have been commercialized in many countries around the world under the brand name Life Whisperer.

Farhad Hormozdiari

Farhad Hormozdiari, a research scientist in the HealthAI team at Google Research, where he combines genetic data and deep learning techniques to improve disease understanding for a diverse set of populations. His long-term research aim includes utilising genetics and computational methods for better understanding of human diseases and complex traits. Prior to Google, Farhad was a postdoctoral fellow at Broad Institute and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health working on multi-omics data to understand the biological mechanisms of human diseases. He obtained his PhD in computer science from UCLA (2016) with focus on fine-mapping of complex traits and GTEx gene expression. Farhad obtained his M.Sc. in computer science from SFU in Canada and B.S. in computer science from Tehran University in Iran.

James McCafferty

James is the Chief Information Officer at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, where he oversees IT strategy, delivery, and operations in support of the Institute's objectives. With a diverse background spanning commercial, higher education, and research sectors, James has been dedicated to driving digital transformation and business change throughout his career.

Natalie Thorne

Dr Natalie Thorne leads the multidisciplinary team behind Genomical, a clinical software-as-a-service platform used by six medical laboratories to manage genomic information for accredited genomic testing. Her expertise spans multiple disciplines: from healthcare, bioinformatics and pathology to software development and data governance.  Nat is passionate about bringing genomics into digital health systems, so that our DNA blueprint can safely and efficiently inform our healthcare when we need it. Last year she was named one of 25 Brilliant Women in Digital Health and one of 25 across Australia for the WILD program for women leaders in STEM.

Denis Bauer

Dr Denis Bauer is an internationally recognised expert in bioinformatics and artificial intelligence, who is passionate about improving human health research by understanding the secrets in our genome using cloud-computing technology. She is an adjunct associate professor at Macquarie University and AWS Data Hero. She was awarded Brilliant Women in Digital Health (2021) and Women in AI Innovation Award (2022). Her achievements include developing an open-source, artificial intelligence-based cloud-service that accelerates disease research and contributing to national and international initiatives for genomic medicine funded with over $500M. In 2020 she won the CSIRO Collaboration Medal for her work analyzing COVID-19 genome for vaccine development and molecular contact tracing.

Marie-Jo Brion

Dr Marie-Jo Brion is Data Manager for Australian Genomics where she leads the data governance and sharing of national genomics cohorts, and delivery of national genomic data strategies. Dr Brion managed the first 5 years of the Australian Genomics data projects, which progressed national approaches to collecting, storing, and sharing genomic and medical data, from the Australian Genomics Flagship cohorts. Prior to managing genomic data projects, Marie-Jo obtained her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Bristol UK, and spent 12 years as a research scientist analysing health data in populations from the UK, Brazil, Australia and USA. She currently leads the delivery of the National Approach to Genomic Information Management (NAGIM) Implementation Recommendations.

Jonathan Hall

Life Whisperer Founder Dr Jonathan Hall FRSA, is Co-Founder and Director of the cutting-edge AI/ML company Presagen , MIT Technology Review Innovator under 35 (APAC) 2019, and was named among the InDaily 40 Under 40 Business Leaders in South Australia, receiving the Entrepreneurial Award in 2019. Jonathan Hall has dual PhDs in theoretical particle physics and nanotechnology specialising in biosensing in embryos, both of which have received awards in their respective fields. Jonathan chaired the international IONS-KOALA Conference on optics, atomic and laser applications. Jonathan was a member of one of the few teams to reach the inaugural CSIRO ON Prime pre-accelerator program for commercialisation in Sydney, and simultaneously won the Australian eChallenge awards for both Medical Innovations and Research Commercialisation for the invention of Life Whisperer.

Robert MacLeay

Robert McLeay founded and led the scientific team behind DoseMeRx, the world’s leading individualised dosing tool – used in over 10 countries by more than 7,000 clinicians, and having calculated in excess of a million doses.  He completed his PhD at the University of Queensland in 2012 in bioinformatics focusing on tool developing using machine learning techniques. Applying skills and techniques from the world of bioinformatics, he crossed over to industry, and was forced to rapidly learn about commercialisation of a medical device, ranging from regulatory bodies (FDA, EMA, TGA) to how to raise venture capital to navigating its acquisition by Tabula Rasa Healthcare (NASDAQ: TRHC) in 2019.

Robert has received a range of awards for his work on DoseMeRx, including from Advance Queensland, ANDHealth, the Austraian , Asia-Pacific ICT Awards, and the University of Queensland Colleges’ Alumni Award 2022.

During his time at DoseMeRx, Robert developed an interest in clinical medicine, and has completed his MD and entered clinical practice. He recently has started foundational work on new startup in the ML/AI space in healthcare.

Lutz Krause

A/Prof Lutz Krause is passionate about improving health throughdevelopment of innovative therapeutics and diagnostics. He utilises mathematicsand artificial intelligence to advance understanding of human biology andimprove patient health. Lutz has worked in both academia and industry,including Nestlé, QIMR Berghofer, and the University of Queensland.  

 

In 2018, Lutz joined Microba Life Sciences, a Brisbane based company, that advanceshealth through precision microbiome science. Here, he has discovered novel therapeutic candidatesusing a data driven, AI supported approach. Several of these candidates areprogressing through pre-clinical development, with the lead candidate being inclinical stage. 

Arthur Hsu

Arthur worked inacademia for over 12 years before moving to the industry. He joined CSL in 2019and is a Senior Scientist and Manager of Computational Genomics in CSL’sBioinformatics team. His team works on the early discovery stage ofpharmaceutical development, spanning several key areas, ranging from insilico target discovery, antibody genomics, gene editing and gene therapyinformatics to cell line and animal model genomic characterisation.Particularly in the gene therapy area, Arthur’s team has contributed to the FDAapproval of the gene therapy for haemophilia B, Hemgenix, that is now marketedin US and Europe. He is also the project scientific coordinator of a new genetherapy program targeting rare disease, bringing state-of-the-art genomics tothe project.

Tuc Nguyen

T.V Nguyen received his MSc in Intelligent Systems in 2011 and his Ph.D. in 2015from School of Computing and Information Technology, University of Wollongong. From 2015 to 2017, he worked as a machine learning engineer at Intelligent Systems Lab, University of Wollongong. From 2017 to 2019, he was senior machine learning engineer at Vin-group JSC. After that he joined Life Whisperer Diagnostics/Presagen as a Senior AI/Deep learning engineer. His research interests &expertise include computer vision, deep learning, traditional machine learning, distributed systems, decentralized federated learning, data cleansing and data analysis. His recent works were applied to a range of medical record/image problems such as embryo viability prediction, genetic modification identification, competent oocyte prediction which have been commercialized in many countries around the world under the brand name Life Whisperer.

Farhad Hormozdiari

Farhad Hormozdiari, a research scientist in the HealthAI team at Google Research, where he combines genetic data and deep learning techniques to improve disease understanding for a diverse set of populations. His long-term research aim includes utilising genetics and computational methods for better understanding of human diseases and complex traits. Prior to Google, Farhad was a postdoctoral fellow at Broad Institute and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health working on multi-omics data to understand the biological mechanisms of human diseases. He obtained his PhD in computer science from UCLA (2016) with focus on fine-mapping of complex traits and GTEx gene expression. Farhad obtained his M.Sc. in computer science from SFU in Canada and B.S. in computer science from Tehran University in Iran.

Program (TBC)

Organising Committee