Translating big data into better health thanks to major grant

Biological markers predicting pre-eclampsia – a pregnancy disorder that causes premature births and serious health problems for mothers and babies – and a better understanding of antibiotic resistance are among the potential outcomes of new research being led by a Faculty of Science statistician.

Professor Kim-Anh Lê Cao from the School of Mathematics and Statistics has received almost $2.9M in a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grant for her research project, New data integration methods to unlock the potential of clinical omics data.

Professor Lê Cao, who is the Director of Melbourne Integrative Genomics, said the project’s objective was to develop a powerful analytical framework to find molecular ‘signatures’ or biomarkers of disease in omics data sets, which will help to improve clinical outcomes for patients.

“Omics data measures the activity of thousands of biological variables at different scales. By integrating these rich datasets, we can shed light on complex biological processes and interactions,” Professor Lê Cao said.

‘Omics’ refers to fields of biology that study the total set of an organism’s data at a particular scale, ranging from the molecular to the cellular. Examples include genomics (study of an organism’s entire DNA), proteomics (study of all proteins produced by an organism) and metabolomics (study of all chemical processes comprising a cell’s metabolism).

“We intend to create new computational methods for data analysis involving partial least squares regression. We will refine and validate these methods through close collaborations in six varied, large studies to answer specific biological questions,” Professor Lê Cao said.

“We aim to identify omics markers predicting early-onset pre-eclampsia and others that will enable better tracking of antibiotic resistance spread in hospital patients,” she said.

“We will also test our analytical methods on omics data from a study of the oral microbiome’s role in children’s tooth decay, gut health research involving up to 100,000 people, an evaluation of treatment for acute myeloid leukemia, and large-scale RNA sequencing of induced pluripotent stem cells.

“Ultimately, we will create broadly applicable, user-friendly, open-access analytical tools to support translation of omics research into clinical practice.”

As well as addressing persistent challenges in statistical modelling and integration of multi-omics data, this project will train young researchers and build collaborations with other research groups from the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales, the Doherty Institute, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and France’s National Research Institute for Food, Agriculture and the Environment.

The Investigator Grants scheme supports researchers at all stages of their careers to pursue important new research directions.

Read the University’s media release about other NHMRC-funded projects addressing a range of health challenges, including mental health, infectious diseases, cancer, Indigenous health, chronic disease, perinatal care, and newborn health.