mixOmics shortlisted in prestigious Eureka Prize from the Australian Museum
[from the University of Melbourne News room]
Software developed by the Faculty of Science’s Professor Kim-Anh Lê Cao (School of Mathematics and Statistics) has been shortlisted for the Australian Museum’s 2023 Eureka Prizes.
The annual Eureka Prizes are Australia’s most comprehensive national science awards, honouring excellence across the areas of research and innovation, leadership, science engagement, and school science.
Professor Lê Cao’s software, mixOmics, has been selected as a finalist for a new award category: the Eureka Prize for Excellence in Research Software, awarded for the development, maintenance or extension of software that has enabled significant new scientific research.
Since 2009, Professor Lê Cao has led a team of statisticians, bioinformaticians and computational biologists to develop mixOmics, which has transformed the way scientists approach biomarker discovery. mixOmics is a leading software that allows scientists to combine different types of biological data, and extract meaningful information from the large datasets generated by modern sequencing technologies.
“It is a great honour to have mixOmics selected as a finalist for this year’s Eureka Prize,” said Professor Lê Cao, an applied statistician.
“mixOmics bridges the gap between statistics and molecular biology, and is used at the forefront of biological research worldwide,” she said.
“Our new methods have contributed to improved understanding of complex conditions such as Huntington’s disease, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, and improved their treatments.”
“We have been working on this software for more than 15 years, pioneering statistical methods to help biologists make sense of the data from their experiments,” said Professor Lê Cao.
The winners of the 2023 Eureka Prizes will be announced on Wednesday 23 August at the awards ceremony held at the Australian Museum. An online livestream of the awards will also be available to all audiences to view on the night. Register for the livestream here.
