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Australian National Phenome Centre transforming health
The Murdoch-led Australian National Phenome Centre (ANPC) launched in October 2018, with the goal of transforming the health of millions of Australians and billions more around the world.
Upon opening, the Australian National Phenome Centre was the most significant health research collaboration ever realised in WA, setting WA up to become a world leader in the development of personalised medicine and nutrition.
The Centre is supported by State and Federal governments, the Australian Research Council, Western Australian Health Translation Network, Western Australian universities and research institutes.
Housed in the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research (South) the ANPC was officially opened by Premier of Western Australia the Hon. Roger Cook, while he was Acting Premier of Western Australia and Health Minister.
Located between Murdoch University’s South Street campus and one of the most technologically advanced private and publicly-funded hospital precincts in Australia, the Australian National Phenome Centre is uniquely positioned to deliver revolutionary research across the full spectrum of health, food and the environment.
So what is a phenome?
A person’s phenome is a dynamic fingerprint of their unique biology resulting from the complex interactions between environmental and genetic factors. Phenomics is the study of how a person’s lifestyle and environment interacts with their genes to influence their health and risk of disease.
World-renowned phenomics pioneer and ANPC Director Professor Jeremy Nicholson explains.
Personalised health works on the premise that everybody’s a little bit different. Similarly with diseases; everybody responds to diseases in slightly different ways, because everybody’s different due to a genetic difference in backgrounds, but also the environment in which they’ve grown up.
Professor Jeremy Nicholson
“At the ANPC lab, scientists can profile these differences, to pinpoint those people who can, potentially, respond better to particular drugs. So it’s finding the right drug, therapy or diet for the right person.”
In leading the Centre Professor Nicholson is supported by a team of elite scientists all working to revolutionise our understanding of the world’s biggest health challenges including infection, diabetes, obesity and dementia and to provide a roadmap for people to live longer, healthier lives. The team includes Premiers Fellows Professor Elaine Holmes supporting microbiome research, Dr Ruey Leng Loo supporting personalized nutrition and a team of expert data scientists led by Professor Julien Wist.
As technology continues to evolve, the ANPC remains one of the largest and best-equipped metabolic laboratories in the world. The Centre houses the Southern Hemisphere’s largest collection of mass spectrometers, along with other sophisticated technologies and state-of-the-art Bruker instrumentation, used to analyse biological samples on a mass scale.
In May 2022 ANPC and Murdoch University continued their commitment to better understanding complex disease with the installation of an ultra-high Field Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometer.
This instrument is the most advanced of its type in Australia. It can perform complex chemical and physical measurements and has recently proved its worth in the identification of a family of new biomarkers of viral infections.
Research at the ANPC is connected with work at similar centres across the International Phenome Centre Network, including sites in London, Birmingham, Hong Kong and Singapore, supported by Bruker Biospin and Bruker Daltonics.
Since opening, the ANPC has made use of global connections to participate in multi-centre, large-scale metabolic phenotyping studies into a range of diseases and health issues including diabetes, autism, antimicrobial resistance and cancer, to gain insights into the environmental, genetic and social factors influencing development and expression of these conditions. Since COVID-19, the Centre has also been a leading source of information, advancement and truth globally.
Image: Official opening of the Australian National Phenome Centre
Image: Professor Jeremy Nicholson demonstrating technology at the ANPC launch
Image: Australian National Phenome Centre team