Enabling Platforms

Deputy Director, Enabling Platforms

Our five Enabling Platforms underpin and build research capability across the Institute. They are designed to provide researchers with facilitated access to new technologies, resources and capabilities, and to drive collaboration across our three Research Themes.

Bioinformatics

This Platform will be our researchers’ gateway to bioinformatic support, education, tools and resources across the Institute, sharing knowledge, addressing challenges and further building expertise.

The goal of this Platform is to facilitate access to research computing infrastructure, analysis pipelines, shared data resources and user-friendly analysis tools through a new centralised repository, empowering researchers to analyse their own data, develop new skills and accelerate discovery.

This Platform’s User Group meets quarterly. Attendance is not limited to bioinformaticians, computational biologists or software engineers, rather everyone is welcome. Students and any wet-lab researchers who are interested in expanding their skillsets, or increasing their understanding of how bioinformatics can benefit their research, are encouraged to attend.

Chair and Acting Lead: Chelsea Mayoh

Immuno-Oncology

This Platform will establish immuno-oncology as a major new research capability of the Institute.

It will play a pivotal role in facilitating the exchange of knowledge, fostering collaborations among researchers and external academic groups, service providers and industry partners to identify access to leading technology and infrastructure.

The platform will work closely with the other enabling platforms to identify the best experimental models and systems and establish the necessary research and analysis capabilities within the Institute.

Technology Innovation

This Platform is responsible for creating advanced research capabilities through the adoption, adaptation and/or development of new molecular, cytometric, and physical devices at the Institute. Examples include 3D bioprinting, single cell analysis, advanced flow cytometry and spatial transcriptomics.

The goal of this Platform is to increase access and enable wider adoption of these novel technologies, and to inform, advise, and educate researchers on how to most effectively use them. It will offer technical and scientific guidance, support grant development (including pilot data generation), and help foster new academic and industry partnerships and collaborations.

This platform will work closely with all Enabling Platforms to develop and implement workflows and share resources so that cellular and genomic data can be rapidly turned into research and clinical outputs. Importantly, the platform is not intended to operate as a core service; instead, the platform will enable and drive innovative research through collaboration, technology development and by building strong academic and industry networks.

Platform Chair: Dr Charley De Bock

Platform Lead: Dr Rob Salomon

High Throughput Screening 

This Platform provides expertise, resources and support for researchers to access automated robotic systems and high throughput platforms for the acquisition and analysis of complex, information-rich functional data.

The goal of this Platform is promote the uptake of high throughput functional and screening technologies by providing education programs and user training, and facilitating new internal and external collaborations with researchers, clinicians and commercial partners.

The User Group meets quarterly, and welcomes anyone who is enthusiastic about new and emerging functional high-throughput technologies, or who wishes to learn more about how they can be used in their research programs.

Platform Lead and Acting Chair: Dr Tim Failes

Bioresources and Data

This Platform will be our researchers’ gateway to Institute-wide research assets, including patient samples, highly characterised laboratory models and their multi-omics and clinical datasets.

The goal of this Platform is to strengthen and integrate bioresources and data, and to make them visible, sharable, and accessible as a foundation for new scientific discovery, innovation and collaboration.

The User Group for this Platform consists of researchers and operations staff from ZERO, Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Animal Facility, Tumour Bank, and Liquid Biopsy research groups. The first meeting was held early this year to identify priorities for the platform, discover new and existing datasets and bioresources, and identify any pain points in accessing these resources. A quarterly meeting will be scheduled going forward.

Data Platform Chair: Dr Marie Wong- Erasmus

Bioresources Platform Co-Chairs: Dr Angela Xie and Dr Andrew Gifford

Bioresources Platform Lead: Roie O’Brien

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