Centre for Computational and Systems Medicine
Centre Director: Professor Elaine Holmes
Murdoch University, Murdoch, Western Australia
News from the centre
The centre’s core research areas
The Centre is an engine for data science and analytics that supports research across the Health Futures Institute through the construction, development and visualisation of predictive and translational mathematical models.
Precision and Personalised Medicine
Metabolic profiling undertaken at the Australian National Phenome Centre generates high-density molecular fingerprints that reflect the metabolic status of individuals.
This provides rich information that can be followed through time to provide an indication of metabolic stability, progression of pathology or responses to treatment or clinical intervention.
Researchers at the CCSM are analysing these fingerprints to identify individual variations and improve clinical care across a wide range of physiological and pathological conditions.
Precision Nutrition
We are analysing population samples to reveal how human health is affected by the nutritional quality and density of food.
This analysis will lead to the development of nutritional and clinical stratification frameworks through the study of the metabolic interactions that occur within our gut.
This work involves collaborating with researchers around the world to better understand individual responses to diet by coupling data from highly-controlled dietary studies with deep metabolic phenotyping, with the aim to personalise healthy eating advice.
Predictive Modelling of COVID-19
We are applying an extensive range of computational tools to create new engines for diagnostic and prognostic biomarker discovery and models for patient stratification.
Funding from the McCusker Foundation is supporting the CCSM in its aim to develop a predictive model for COVID-19 severity at an early stage to optimize patient response and management.
This work involves linking metabolic and phenotypic data sets generated by Murdoch and international research partners to drive a harmonised program of biochemical discovery.
Key researchers
Dr Ruey Leng Loo
Dr Loo is the Premier’s Early to Mid-Career Fellow. A qualified pharmacist and emerging research leader, she is spearheading research in personalised nutrition to deliver a new knowledge of dietary influence on human metabolism and the microbiome.
Dr Torben Kimhofer
Dr Kimhofer is Senior Lecturer at the ANPC and specializes in bioinformatics and chemoinformatics. A data enthusiast, he is an expert in the use of multivariate statistics, pattern recognition and machine learning approaches; his research interests are in metabolic phenotyping of microbiomic interactions in autism spectrum disorders.
Dr Luke Whiley
Dr Whiley is Senior Lecturer at the ANPC who is a domain leader in the application of mass spectrometry for metabolic phenotyping. Jointly appointed by the Perron Institute, Dr Whiley’s work is focused on how genetics and lifestyle interactions influence the development of dementia and the maintenance of cognitive health throughout ageing.
Professor Julien Wist
Professor Wist is Professor of Computational Spectroscopy at the ANPC. In addition to the establishment of new mathematical and statistical paradigms, Professor Wist will lead the construction of organised data architectures for storage, retrieval, processing and visualization, and the implementation of novel pipelines unique to metabolic phenotyping.