Genomics and Machine Learning Lab

Fighting cancer: one cell at a time

Dr Quan Nguyen

Group Leader

Research Focus

The Genomics and Machine Learning Labratory (GML) studies cancer and infected tissues in patient samples and mouse models. They generate novel data from spatial and single cell technologies and develop new computational and statical methods to find clinically important patterns from this complex data.

They pioneered the merging of two big data fields, sequencing and imaging, to advance understanding of pathological processes one cell at a time and across all cells within a diseased tissue.

By mapping cell types, their spatial organisation and cell-cell interactions in tissues, GML focuses on discovering new patterns and cellular regulation mechanisms that are hidden from traditional research approaches.

Examples of outcomes include cell and gene markers for predicting cancer progression risks, stratifying disease subtypes, discovering new drug targets to modulate the immune systems, and adding new capabilities for prioritising drugs most effective to each patient.

Gallery

Spatial analysis of gene expression at single cell resolution
Spatial proteomic profiling of liver fibrosis
Revealing the cell type composition of melanoma at single cell resolution
Discovering lncRNA in cancer
Mapping the transcriptome, metabolome and drug in brain cancer
Probing the cell-cell communication through ligand-receptor interaction
spatial mapping of the brain
Multiomics mapping

Research Projects

Current Research Projects

Developing next generation machine learning for diagnosis and prognosis from integrating spatial sequencing data and histopathological images (Spatial Cellular Pathology).

Predicting metastasis and disease progression using spatial data.

Discovering new immunotherapy drug targets using ligand-receptor screening from spatial and single cell data.


Research Team

Albert Xiong

Andrew Causer

Andrew Newman

Andrew Su


Funding

  • NHMRC Investigator Grant
  • NHMRC Ideas Grant
  • National Breast Cancer Foundation
  • Cancer Council Queensland
  • Australia Research Council
  • Pharmaceutical companies and Industry partners
  • US Department of Defence
  • WingForLife Foundation


Cellular neighborhood analysis in spatial omics reveals new tissue domains and cell subtypes

Read More

Further Information



External Collaborations
  • Ankur Sharma
  • Brandon Wainwright
  • Christian Nefzger
  • Grant Montgomery
  • Hanlee Ji
  • Ian Frazer
  • Kiarash Khosrotehrani
  • Joseph Powell
  • Jessica Mar
  • Nathan Palpant
  • Marc Ruitenberg
  • Pete Simpson
  • Nan Ye
  • Fred Roosta
  • Spatial industry partners