Welcome

 

Inheritance has been an ongoing fascination for the human race. People have known for thousands of years that parents pass traits to their children, but it is only relatively recently that our technology has caught up to our curiosity, enabling us to delve into the mystery of how this inheritance occurs.

When the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB) was founded in 2000, researchers around the world were engaged in a massive effort to produce the first sequence of the human genome. In fact, IMB was established to take advantage of this genomic revolution, and to connect genomics researchers with cell biologists and chemists to form a full pipeline of drug discovery.

The global effort to sequence the human genome took over a decade, and cost over $1 billion. Today, we can sequence a human genome in a few hours, for less than $1000. This advance in technology is powering a new era where treatments based on a person’s genome are moving from science fiction to clinical reality.

All common diseases, such as heart disease and diabetes, have a genetic component; genetic factors contribute to 19 of the top 20 causes of death in Australia. I’m proud that IMB is a world leader in harnessing genomics to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of our biggest killers, with the ultimate goal being to develop personalised medicine based on an individual’s genome rather than a one-size-fits-all basis.

Our researchers, such as Naomi Wray, Grant Montgomery, Peter Visscher and David Evans, may not be household names, but they are world leaders in their fields. Their work is changing how we manage diseases such as psychiatric disorders and endometriosis, and creating new methods used the world over to analyse the tsunami of big data being produced by genomics research. This extends to the next generation of researchers – Loic Yengo, Sonia Shah, Allan McRae and Quan Nguyen, who are developing exciting new ways to prevent the onset of disease, and treat conditions such as motor neurone disease and cancer.

Improving health equity is a high priority for us. IMB researchers are spearheading initiatives to increase the number of samples available for genetic research from non-European populations. Currently, more than 85 per cent of samples in genomic databases worldwide are from people with European ancestry, and this matters because factors such as risk of disease and response to medication can vary between populations.

We are working to overcome these barriers and recruit people who reflect our diverse population.

This magazine is the third in our series The Edge, which explores some of the biggest health challenges facing our local and global communities. Please read on to learn how we are using genomics to overcome disease, and to learn more about how our genetics shape us.

 

A portrait of Professor Ian Henderson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Ian Henderson
Executive Director
Institute for Molecular Bioscience
The University of Queensland

 

 

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