From cancer genomics to evolutionary biology: how ABLeS is powering Australian research
A recent wave of publications, spanning the fields of conservation genomics, precision oncology, and evolutionary biology, highlight the growing impact of the Australian BioCommons Leadership Share (ABLeS) program. These studies demonstrate the breadth of data-intensive challenges being tackled by Australian researchers, and showcase how streamlined access to national supercomputing resources is accelerating life sciences research across the country.
Recent highlights include:
Australian plant evolution: a phylogenomic analysis has clarified the complex evolutionary history of the native plant genus Teucrium, highlighting repeated colonisation of the continent and the development of unique adaptations to the arid Australian environment.
ABLeS enables access to 3 TB long term storage, 2 TB temporary storage on scratch and 100 KSUs per quarter.
Childhood precision oncology: in a study of high-risk paediatric tumours, researchers demonstrated that RNA-seq provides additional functional insights into mutation pathogenicity and that it is an indispensable companion to whole genome sequencing in precision medicine.
ABLeS enables access to 1 TB temporary storage, 5 TB long term storage and 100 KSUs per quarter.
Respiratory medicine: the study outlines observations regarding the significant overlap in gene expression and network structure between paired amniotic and nasal epithelial samples, supporting the potential of the amnion as a non-invasive and abundant tissue surrogate for investigating the respiratory system of newborns.
ABLeS enables access to unlimited temporary storage on scratch, 5 TB permanent storage and 50 KSUs per quarter.
A group of papers have been published are from partners involved in the Australian Amphibian and Reptile Genomics Initiative (AusARG), Bioplatforms Australia’s national collaborative project facilitating research using genomics approaches towards a more thorough understanding of evolution and conservation of Australia’s unique native amphibians and reptiles that are now under threat, through climate, disease or habitat modification:
Australian alpine skink: researchers present a chromosome-scale genomic assembly for the Australian alpine skink Bassiana duperreyi, which provides a crucial resource for research into thermolabile sex reversal in this threatened species.
Central bearded dragon: the study describes a new, near telomere-to-telomere phased genome assembly for the central bearded dragon Pogona vitticeps, to serve as a resource to enable and accelerate research into the unusual reproductive attributes of the species, such as temperature-dependant sex reversal.
Dragon lizards: a new phylogenomic tree shows that the colonisation of Australia by Amphibolurinae dragon lizards (Family Agamidae) was followed by rapid morphological expansion, which was facilitated by a transition from a tree-living ancestor to a generalist form before specialisation.
ABLeS enables access to 135 TB long term storage, 1 TB temporary storage on scratch and 100 KSUs per quarter.
Australian central bearded dragon, Pogona vitticeps
As BioCommons’ Product Manager, Bioinformatics Platforms, Dr Ziad Al Bkhetan has supported these projects since they started using the ABLeS service:
“It is incredibly rewarding to see the direct connection between facilitating computational resources and the fascinating science that follows. Through ABLeS, we have been able to help researchers build foundational genomes for unique Australian reptiles, and then see other teams use the technology to gain insights into treating childhood cancers. Our goal is to enable these communities to take advantage of the incredible research infrastructure we have here in Australia, and these papers showcase the success of our partnerships through the program.”
These diverse studies are just a few examples of how the ABLeS program is providing Australian researchers with the vital, large-scale computational power needed to tackle complex bioinformatic challenges. By providing access to Australia’s Tier 1 high-performance computing facilities, ABLeS offers a streamlined pathway for research communities to harness national infrastructure and accelerate their discoveries.
Learn more about ABLeS
ABLeS is co-funded by Bioplatforms Australia, National Computational Infrastructure and Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre.
