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08 Apr 2016

Joint Sydney research centre in the works for Garvan and Weizmann Institutes

Garvan and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science are planning to establish a joint centre for research in cellular genomics. The Centre, which will be known as the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics, will be housed in The Kinghorn Cancer Centre in Sydney.

The Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney and Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science are planning to establish a joint centre for research in cellular genomics. The Centre, which will be known as the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics, will be housed in The Kinghorn Cancer Centre in Sydney. 

The Centre will be Australia’s only multidisciplinary facility for cellular genomics – the study of the molecular genetic states of thousands of individual cells. The mission of the Centre will be to help researchers to develop a detailed understanding of how the genomes and gene expression programs of individual cells in the brain, the immune system and other organs change over the course of a lifetime, how cancers, autoimmune diseases, dementia and other conditions develop, and how to design new strategies for prevention and treatment.

The Weizmann Institute of Science has outstanding expertise in single-cell genomics and in other key emerging technologies; Garvan is a leader in the analysis of cancer genomes and their behaviour and is at the forefront of genome sequencing in Australia. Together, researchers from the two institutes hope to create synergistic research platforms to advance the field. In addition, the Centre’s establishment will form the foundation for a broad and enduring partnership between Garvan and the Weizmann Institute.

Plans for the Centre were announced yesterday by New South Wales Premier Mike Baird, who is on an official visit to Israel. In his announcement, Mr Baird heralded the partnership, saying it would create a bridge between two innovative and world-leading research bodies.

“By building the first facility of this kind in our part of the world, we can continue NSW’s leadership in scientific and medical research,” Mr Baird said.

The Centre’s establishment will be supported by $5 million in NSW Government funding, with matching funds provided by Garvan, with the assistance of Weizmann Australia.

Professor Christopher Goodnow, Garvan’s Deputy Director, says: “We are delighted to be partnering with the Weizmann Institute of Science and to be establishing this visionary centre here in NSW.

“We are entering an era of cellular genomics, in which we can investigate the individual molecular genetic states of thousands of single blood, brain or cancer cells – revealing important changes in each cell’s genetic code, its genetic output, and the secondary code that organizes the genome (the epigenome).

“That level of resolution, coupled with the ability to probe large populations of cells, can lead to new insights into the mechanisms of disease that, before single-cell approaches came of age, simply couldn’t be unlocked,” says Professor Michal Neeman, Vice President of the Weizmann Institute.

The partnership will also enable Garvan and the Weizmann Institute to collaborate on science education and biomedical visualisation. In NSW as well as at Weizmann, this will accelerate development of targeted programs to help science teachers teach genomics to middle and high school students and will open the door to these advances to the public.

 

Media enquiries:

Anna Greenhalgh

Communications Coordinator

Garvan Institute of Medical Research

 

a.greenhalgh@garvan.org.au

T: +61 (0) 2 9295 8126

M: +61 (0) 437 282467