The role of cellular genomics in understanding the origin of diseases

My name is Karena Pryce, and my job title is research and biobank manager for the Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics, and it is housed at the Garvan Institute for Medical Research. The Garvan Institute is a research medical institute and there are a lot of different disciplines and research groups within the precinct.

These include genomics, immunology, research, and tissue culture to name a few. The Garvan-Weizmann Centre for Cellular Genomics is one of the research groups that is within the Garvan Institute. The overall research goals of GWCCG are the use of cellular genomics to understand how diseases originate or act at a cellular level, to develop new technologies to solve critical problems, and to run research programs which focus on both fundamental and translational biology.

My particular role runs across the different streams within GWCCG. These streams include cancer, stem cells, immunology, and research and development. I work mainly in the cancer stream, and I manage all the samples in the biobank.

My main project at the moment is to implement a LIM System - which is a laboratory information management system - which is going to track and manage all the samples that we collect for these projects. I'm currently inputting all the data that's clinical and patient data into the system that belongs to all the samples that we're collecting.

The biosafety equipment that we use for our projects is a PC2 tissue culture room. We work in PC2 hoods. This is for our own protection, but it's also to avoid contamination of the patient samples and primary cell lines, and it's also to keep the biological integrity of our samples.

We follow PC2 guidelines and ensure that everybody using the room has proper training. The future for my work or my main project would be to extend the LIMS database system to the other research groups and research centers within the Garvan Institute and the precinct itself.