KAREN is fast-forwarding New Zealand's participation in world-leading human genomic research and analysis.

Drs Chris Brown and Mik Black and their team of researchers from the University of Otago's Integrated Genomics Resources for Health and Disease project were recently awarded a grant of $468,000 from the first round of the Capability Build Fund to utilise the speed and capacity of KAREN to share large amounts of human genomic data with researchers from around the world.

The team decipher genomes. They aim to discover signals that control where and when genes are turned on or off and how this changes in cancer cells.

The project employs a new integrated approach to decipher this regulatory information and will see variants of the human genomic sequence and related gene expression data combined from databases in the US and Europe utilising advanced networking.

Data integration

This data will be integrated with NZ generated data, particularly from the Otago Genomics facility. It will be interrogated using techniques developed at Otago, then provided to the international medical and biotechnological research and education community, via the network.

"The easy transfer of large amounts of genomic data was not feasible prior to KAREN.  KAREN will enable quicker, better and continuous access to international genetic databases,” said Dr Brown.

Dr Brown says, through enabling better communication and data sharing amongst New Zealand scientists, KAREN will greatly enhance the contribution New Zealand researchers can make to the global enterprise of understanding the human genome and its role in disease, particularly cancer and genetic disease.

Middleware development

The project will develop and implement middleware to enable processing of this critical human genetic data.

Dr Brown and his team will then share their expertise in using the technology, by creating virtual workshops featuring New Zealand and international researchers working in this field. These workshops will also provide exemplars of utilising the middleware for educational purposes.

Bioinformatics

This project is taking place within the field of Bioinformatics – the science required to capture, store and comprehend large amounts of biological data, such as the three billion base sequence of the human genome.

Bioinformatics is a new discipline that occurs at the intersection of biology, mathematics and computer science.

More information

http://mrna.otago.ac.nz/Bioinfo/RegulatorymRNA.htm

The Affymetrix machine shown was recently installed and can analyse 500,000 individual variations from a sample of human DNA on a gene chip.

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Updated 16 May 2008