Building better genome browsers

We were pleased to see one of our close partners recently awarded a grant to extend on a highly collaborative BioCommons project. Dominique Gorse from QCIF, along with Sandie Degnan and Bernie Degnan from the School of Biological Sciences at UQ, received support for Developing a scalable genome browser and interactive repository for large and complex multi-omic datasets from non-model organisms of environmental and economic importance.

Great Barrier Reef, Queensland (Image: Daniel Pelaez Duque)

Announced as a 2021 UQ Genome Informatics Hub (GIH) collaborative project, it will deliver an interactive repository for diverse transcriptomic, chromatin-state and proteomic data and will be immediately populated with existing genomes of two Great Barrier Reef animals: the notorious destroyer of coral reefs, the crown-of-thorns starfish and a model for animal evolution, the sponge Amphimedon queenslandica”. 

QCIF are a key contributor to BioCommons activities around developing systems for non-model organism de novo genome assembly and annotation, and will launch a new national hosted Apollo service as part of that initiative in coming months. In the GIH project the Apollo browser and service will be extended to provide an interactive repository facilitating the viewing and interrogation of a wide range of omics data used for the curation and annotation of non-model organisms.

The GIH is an initiative designed to develop and advance innovative genomic capabilities at the University of Queensland. To find out more about their activities, visit the recently launched a website and subscribe to their newsletter.