Boosting genomic medicine in Sri Lanka

A group of Sri Lankan medical doctors, research lab workers and university students have just completed a hands-on bioinformatics training program using Galaxy to learn about genomics. Galaxy Australia team member, Dr Nuwan Goonasekera, joined an international panel of experts to deliver the workshop Bioinformatics for Genomic Medicine.

The US Embassy in Sri Lanka and Genelabs Medical offered the three week course to empower Sri Lankan genomics researchers to independently process and analyse DNA and RNA sequencing data. Participants gained the skills needed to identify clinically actionable mutations, helping to guide treatment plans based on patient data.

Dr Shurjo Sen from the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) Office of Genomics Data Science requested Nuwan teach the 28 participants to use Galaxy in collaboration with the University of Colombo. The Galaxy Australia service underpinned the training while trainees were learning how to use Galaxy for sequence analysis and Nuwan made good use of Galaxy Australia’s Training Infrastructure as a Service (TIaaS). They also accessed the NHGRI Genomic Data Science Analysis, Visualization, and Informatics Lab-space (AnVIL) to learn cloud computing and variant interpretation techniques. Use of this cloud-based genomic data sharing and analysis platform, along with Galaxy, will empower these Sri Lankan genomics researchers to access and analyse large genomic datasets in a collective and collaborative way.