Prof David Ascher is currently an NHMRC Investigator and Director of the Biotechnology Program at the University of Queensland. He is also Head of Computational Biology and Clinical Informatics at the Baker Institute.
David’s research focus is in modelling biological data to gain insight into fundamental biological processes. One of his primary research interests has been developing tools to unravel the link between genotype and phenotype, using computational and experimental approaches to understand the effects of mutations on protein structure and function. His group has developed a platform of over 40 widely used programs for assessing the molecular consequences of coding variants (>7 million hits/year).
Working with clinical collaborators in Australia, Brazil and UK, these methods have been translated into the clinic to guide the diagnosis, management and treatment of a number of hereditary diseases, rare cancers and drug resistant infections.
David has a B.Biotech from the University of Adelaide, majoring in Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Pharmacology and Toxicology; and a B.Sci(Hon) from the University of Queensland, majoring in Biochemistry, where he worked with Luke Guddat and Ron Duggleby on the structural and functional characterization of enzymes in the branched-chain amino acid biosynthetic pathway. David then went to St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research to undertake a PhD at the University of Melbourne in Biochemistry. There he worked under the supervision of Michael Parker using computational, biochemical and structural tools to develop small molecules drugs to improve memory.
In 2013 David went to the University of Cambridge to work with Sir Tom Blundell on using fragment based drug development techniques to target protein-protein interactions; and subsequently on the structural characterisation of proteins involved in non-homologous DNA repair. He returned to Cambridge in 2014 to establish a research platform to characterise the molecular effects of mutations on protein structure and function- using this information to gain insight into the link between genetic changes and phenotypes. He was subsequently recruited as a lab head in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Melbourne in 2016, before joining the Baker Institute in 2019 and the University of Queensland in 2021.
He is an Associate Editor of PBMB and Fronteirs in Bioinformatics, and holds honorary positions at Bio21 Institute, Cambridge University, FIOCRUZ, and the Tuscany University Network.
Dr Sandra Brosda is a Research Fellow within the Surgical Oncology group led by Professor Andrew Barbour.
Dr Brosda was awarded a PhD in bioinformatics and cancer genetics from the University of Queensland in November 2020. Her research focused on biomarker discovery and intra-tumour heterogeneity and tumour evolution in oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC). In 2021, Dr Brosda was awarded a Cure Cancer Australia PdCCRS grant and an MSH project grant to further investigate tumour evolution to improve precision medicine in OAC.
She has been involved in research projects covering genetics, epigenetics, spatial transcriptomics, radiomics, ctDNA and quality of life assessments in the context of cancer. Overall, her research applies bioinformatics tools and approaches to cancer genomics to improve precision medicine and health outcomes for patients with melanoma, oesophago-gastric cancer and pancreatic cancer.
Clara Jiang is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, the University of Queensland. Clara’s research focuses on using genomic and transcriptomic analysis to investigate the genetic basis of cardiovascular and psychiatric disorders, with a particular focus on female health, as well as using statistical genomic approaches to explore possible opportunities for drug repurposing. Clara graduated from the University of Queensland with Bachelor of Advanced Science (First Class Honours) in 2017, and was awarded the University Medal. Clara was awarded her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2021, where she utilised bioinformatic approaches and molecular experiments to decipher the genetic aetiology of breast cancer, specifically the regulatory role of transposons or ‘jumping genes’ in modulating the transcriptional landscape in the cancer state. Clara is also a UQ Wellness ambassador and an advocate for promoting equity, diversity and inclusion in academia.
I am a computational biologist with a centre-wide research role in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Plant Success in Nature and Agriculture, based here at UQ. I spend my time researching new computational techniques for predicting complex quantitative traits by integrating multiple layers of 'omics data (amongst dozens of other things!).
Areas of interest:
Machine Learning, AI and high performance computing to learn and exploit functional connectivity in biological data
Gene Expressions networks
Multiplex networks, information propagation and perturbation
Genomic Prediction
My goal is to aid crop and forestry breeders in selecting parental lines more accurately, which gives us a pathway to improving certain plant species. I also spend time developing new data analysis techniques that are being applied to human disease and conditions such as Autism and substance addiction.
David completed his PhD at Australian National University in 2017, focusing on the genome-wide basis of foliar terpene variation in Eucalyptus. He then undertook a postdoc at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a US Dept of Energy lab with a focus on big data. After a stint as a staff scientist at Oak Ridge, David arrived at the Centre of Excellence in 2023 in the role of a Senior Research Fellow.
