Non-animal models (NAMs) are crucial tools in biomedical and clinical research. They are being increasingly used as readily accessible model types in medical product development, to determine the genomic basis of health and disease, and to complement more traditional in vivo modelling technologies.
In 2021, Phenomics Australia led a $5m investment to establish Australia’s first nationally coordinated research service for non-animal modelling. The new service, delivered through a consortium of service nodes, filled a substantial unmet research need and integrated key national capabilities in the generation and analysis of genome engineered stem cells and tissue-based 3D organoid model systems.
To date this service has delivered well over 1000 projects for over 300 researchers, and we are excited that an expanded total infrastructure budget of $12.2m to 2028 will ensure this crucial new infrastructure capability will continue to grow to meet researcher needs
Explore the impactful stories of Phenomics Australia‘s innovative non-animal models below:
Discover highlights from our sector engagement activities, showcasing various events and collaborations!
Phenomics Australia supports the infrastructure capability for the NSW Non-Animal Technologies Network (NAT-Net).
NAT-Net aims to make groundbreaking discoveries in the field of medicine and health while developing and promoting alternative methods that reduce the need to use animals in research. Please take a few minutes to complete the survey and share your insights with the NAT-Net.
Meet the scientific leaders providing Phenomics Australia Non-Animal Models and High-Throughput Screening services. Click on the image for more information.
A/Prof Amee George is a Fellow and Group Leader in the Genome Sciences and Cancer Division, and Manager of the ANU Centre for Therapeutic Discovery (ACTD), at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at The Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. She obtained her PhD from the University of Melbourne in 2007, and during her career, developed a keen interest in high-throughput screening and the use of functional genomics-based approaches to investigate the molecular basis of disease, as well as identifying small molecule therapies for the treatment of disease. Her postdoctoral appointments have included the examining how angiotensin receptor signalling hijacks growth factor receptor pathways and leads to aberrant cell growth, as well as investigating how perturbations in ribosome biogenesis lead to the activation of the nucleolar surveillance response, which is an important molecular mechanism underlying some diseases of the ribosome (ribosomopathies), in particular, the congenital bone marrow failure disorder Diamond Blackfan Anaemia (DBA) as well as cancer. She has received funding from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Captain Courageous Foundation, Maddie Riewoldt’s Vision and Cancer Council ACT. Dr George has over 14 years’ experience in designing high-throughput screening assays and conducting high-throughput screens and with her role in the ACTD, works collaboratively with researchers to execute projects.
A/Prof. Amee George
Manager of the ANU Centre for Therapeutic Discovery (ACTD) - Australian National University (ANU)
Dr Louise Winteringham has an extensive background in cancer research focusing on the regulation of gene expression in normal and cancer cells and was a member of the FANTOM5 consortium, undertaking an extensive analysis of mammalian transcriptomes.
As head of the Translational Cancer Research Program, she has established a research pipeline to facilitate sample collection, processing, analysis, and biobanking with a focus on developing precision medicine for oncology patients.
“Phenomics Australia provides an extraordinary opportunity for researchers to access the latest expertise and technology in functional genomics to advance our scientific knowledge and drive better health outcomes.”
Dr Louise Winteringham
Translational Cancer Research Program - Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research (Perkins)
Dr Thierry Jarde is a Laboratory Head in the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at Monash University. He is a cancer cell biologist who has worked for the last 15 years with organoids and mouse models to study stem cell function in health and disease.
He completed his doctoral studies at the School of Pharmacy (Clermont-Ferrand) in France before conducting postdoctoral training under the supervision of Professor Trevor Dale at the School of Biosciences (Cardiff University, UK) and Professor Helen Abud at the Biomedicine Discovery Institute (Monash University) where he studied the role of WNT and NRG1 signalling in stem cell biology.
Thierry is also the Director of the Organoid program at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute. He collaborates with clinicians to grow organoids from human breast and gastrointestinal tissues. These organoids are currently being used for a variety of biological studies, including drug testing.
Dr Thierry Jardé
Director of the Monash Organoid Program - Monash University (Monash)
Prof. Alice Pébay obtained a PhD in Neurosciences from the University of Paris VI in 2001 and subsequently joined Professor Martin Pera at Monash University to undertake research on human pluripotent stem cells. She then continued her research in this area at the University of Melbourne where she commenced in 2007. Alice’s team aims to use patient specific pluripotent stem cells to model neurodegenerative diseases of the eye and brain. Alice has a proven track record in generating iPSCs and differentiating them into various cell types for disease modelling including those affecting the central nervous system and the eye. Alice and her collaborators have pioneered the use of automation for human pluripotent stem cell research in Australia, enabling the streamlining generation and maintenance of iPSC-derived cells from hundreds of patients. Alice was awarded a National Health & Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Career development Fellowship in 2012, subsequently an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship in 2014 and is now a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow. Alice is the primary inventor of three granted international patents related to stem cell technology.
Prof. Alice Pébay
Head of the Stem Cell Disease Modelling Laboratory - University of Melbourne (UMelb)
Dr. Sara Howden is a recognized leader in human reprogramming and genome engineering technologies. As a National Health and Medical Research Council postdoctoral fellow at the University of Wisconsin, working with Professor James Thomson, she established an improved episomal reprogramming system, enabling the efficient generation of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from human fibroblasts using xeno-free conditions. She has extensive experience with genome engineering technologies and was the first to report targeted gene repair in patient-specific iPSCs. She has subsequently developed novel Cas9 variants for improved gene-editing outcomes and a one-step protocol that enables the rapid and efficient generation of gene-edited iPSC from human skin or blood. These methodologies have been adopted by many researchers in the international stem cell research community and are routinely applied within the MCRI Gene-editing Core Facility, which was established by Dr. Howden in 2017 and has generated hundreds of custom edited iPSC lines for researchers locally and internationally. Dr. Howden has also generated a large variety of lineage-specific reporter lines which has led to improved methods for the directed differentiation of iPSC-derived cell types and tissues. Many of these resources have been widely distributed and are publicly available through the facility.
Dr Sara Howden
Head of the Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell (iPSC) Derivation & CRISPR Gene Editing Facility - Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI)
Prof. Kaylene Simpson has a passion for technology development and application in biomedical research and extensive national and international connections with leading companies to ensure early access to new technologies .
She has led the Functional High Throughput Technologies Australia meeting for the past 10 years, bringing together the screening community to continue to raise the profile within the country .
“The VCFG enables researchers Australia-wide to perform unbiased discovery screens using CRISPR, RNAi and compounds together with quantitive cellular phenotyping using High content imaging in both 2D and 3D settings. An NCRIS lab for the past 11 years, the VCFG is a highly experienced team who actively engage with researchers to support their projects from assay development to analysis, training the next generation and providing critical infrastructure to the nation.”
Prof Kaylene Simpson
Head of the Victorian Centre for Functional Genomics (VCFG) - Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre (PeterMac)
Prof. Christine Wells is the Chair of Stem Cells Systems and former Director of the University of Melbourne Centre for Stem Cell Systems. She is a genome biologist with a focus on the differentiation and activation of mammalian cells and a particular interest in the intersection between innate immunity and stem cell biology in tissue injury and repair.
She is the architect of the Stemformatics collaboration resource that encourages collaboration between stem cell researchers and bioinformaticians, biostatisticians and computational biologists.
Professor Wells graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the University of New England in 1988. She gained experience in stem cell sciences, genetics and genomics at various positions in Australia and at the UK Medical Research Council, MRC Harwell before undertaking postgraduate studies at The University of Queensland. She gained a Doctor of Philosophy in 2004.
Over the past decade, she has worked at Griffith University, The University of Glasgow and The University of Queensland, developing a program of research in genomics and bioinformatics, and the application of these to better understanding of stem cell biology, tissue injury and repair.
She leads a program of research that encompasses three pillars of impact and output: (1) Method development in data integration and visualisation to create molecular atlases that provide a common reference for stem cell researchers (2) the development and direction of community-focused collaboration platforms to enable the adoption of complex, multidimensional data by clinicians and stem cell biologists, and (3) strategic application to projects that enable gene discovery and characterisation in both stem cell biology and innate immunity.
Her laboratory works to the principle of biological insight through data accessibility and reproducibility and a founding ethos of her laboratory is collaboration.
“Phenomics Australia facilities create essential resources for the study of gene function. By supporting the establishment of the Australian stem cell registry, they are also supporting stewardship of these resources. By providing mechanisms for researchers to find and share cell lines, and the data generated on those lines, Phenomics Australia is also supporting Australian researchers to make the most of these important resources.“
Prof. Christine Wells
Chair of the Stem Cell Systems - University of Melbourne (UMelb)
Dr Alexander Combes is Head of the Development and Disease laboratory at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute. His research investigates kidney formation and birth defects in animal models and applies developmental principles to engineer new stem cell models of human kidney disease.
At Phenomics Australia, Dr Combes heads an expert team dedicated to generating new cellular and animal models of disease with CRISPR gene editing and traditional approaches. They also facilitate import and use of mouse ES cells from international repositories and provide cryopreservation facilities mirroring those at the ANU, to safely store mouse lines.
“Our work at Phenomics Australia enables academic and industry bodies across the nation to investigate disease mechanisms and develop new therapies to address our national health priorities. We aim to provide equitable and economical access to the latest technologies to support Australia’s biomedical research community.”
Dr Alex Combes
Head of the Monash Genome Modification Platform - Monash University (Monash)
Professor Sally Dunwoodie BSc PhD FAHMS is an internationally renowned biomedical researcher investigating the genetic and environmental causes of birth defects, and Deputy Director at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute. She is Director of the VCCRI Innovation Centre which provides researchers with access to equipment and expertise in facilities that enable molecular, pre-clinical and clinical research.
“Collaboration and ready access to specialist platforms and expertise has a significant impact on the quality of research output, the speed with which it is generated, and the impact of the new information. Importantly it also provides crucial training opportunities across disciplines for researchers. Our partnering with Phenomics Australia to generate induced pluripotent stem cells will have many benefits for those engaged in medical research.”
Prof. Sally Dunwoodie
Stem Cell Production and Cell Function Screening Service - Deputy Director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute (VCCRI), Director VCCRI Innovation Centre
A/Professor Joseph (Sefi) Rosenbluh is a Victoria Cancer Agency mid-career Fellow and Laboratory Head at the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department and the Cancer Program at the Biomedical Discovery Institute, Monash University.
His research program applies pooled genetic screens including CRISPR and gene editing techniques aimed at understanding how genes are regulated in normal and disease cells and how they could be used for the development of new strategies for diagnoses and treatment. Sefi has established the Monash Functional Genomics Platform which provides a wide range of technologies for perturbing genes and measuring phenotypes.
Through Phenomics Australia the platform provides CROPSeq services. In CROPSeq a pooled library of sgRNAs is used to transduce cells with single-cell RNA Sequencing (scRNASeq) as a readout. This enables high throughput studies of how genes regulate complex phenotypes.
“Phenomics Australia is one of the best resources for researchers in Australia. It enables high-quality studies of genes and phenotypes and how they are related to disease. The technologies offered by Phenomics Australia nodes give researchers in Australia access to some of the latest and most exciting technologies that will undoubtedly have a major impact”.
A/Prof. Sefi Rosenbluh
Head of the Monash Functional Genomics Platform (Monash)
Professor Simon Barry is a molecular biologist interested in immunological defects that give rise to autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes. He has a collaborative research program in the discipline of Paediatrics, which has both a basic science and a translational component. This allows him to undertake gene discovery and functional validation in vitro and then access human clinical material to determine whether there is a causal link with disease.
Simon completed his PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. Following his postdoctoral appointments, Simon moved to the University of Adelaide to start his own laboratory. He has joined Phenomics Australia to perform high throughput screening.
Prof. Simon Barry
Head of the Functional Genomics South Australia (FGSA) at the University of Adelaide
Prof. Ruth Arkell leads a research group at the John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) at The Australian National University (ANU) that studies how genome and environmental variation impact embryonic development. Her science career began at the University of Sydney (BSc and Honours), before moving to the UK to undertake PhD and post-doctoral research and to establish a laboratory at the Mammalian Genetics Unit in Harwell, Oxfordshire, obtaining competitive Fellowships for all stages of her career. She was recruited to ANU’s Research School of Biological Sciences in 2006 and was awarded a Senior Viertel Medical Fellowship. In 2016 she moved within ANU to JCSMR.
Throughout her career, she has pioneered the use of the mouse as a model for precision health; she was involved in the sequencing of the mouse genome, mutagenesis screens to identify models of human disease and the development of whole-genome phenotyping tools, including transcription profiling. She has extensive experience with the academic leadership of research infrastructure in the UK and Australia. She is currently the academic lead for The Australian National University’s precision health platforms that includes Phenomics Australia activities in mouse biobanking, mouse genome targeting and in vitro modelling.
Inherently collaborative in her own research, she is an advocate for Australia’s National Collaborative Research Infrastructure. Phenomics Australia is key to ensuring our research excellence, meeting our ambitions in precision health and addressing emerging biomedical research challenges.
Prof. Ruth Arkell
John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) Associate Director, Research Infrastructure, at the Australian National University
Andrew has been studying and working in pluripotent stem cell biology since 2003. He received his PhD in 2008 from the University of New South Wales for his Thesis entitled “Investigating the factors potentially involved in the up-scale of human embryonic stem cells” which focused on low oxygen culture and the proteomic detection of proteins secreted by feeder layers. He joined the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in late 2007 as a Postdoc where he conducted research into improving culture conditions for PSCs with a multidisciplinary approach. In mid-2013, Andrew moved to Toronto, Canada to work as Project Manager and Lead Scientist at the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine managing multidisciplinary translational projects and developing scalable Pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocyte differentiation, skills now incorporated into a $5M MRFF grant for Phase I clinical trials to treat cardiovascular disease. In addition to driving cell production of PSC-derived therapies, he is also the Facility Manager of StemCore, an NCRIS funded, ISO9001 accredited service provision facility specialising in reprogramming patient cells to iPSC, cell characterisation and gene-editing.
Dr Andrew Prowse
Head of the UQ In-Vitro Genome Engineering and Disease Modelling Service (IGEDMS) at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN) - University of Queensland (UQ)
Contact us to know more about how we can help with your non-animal model research.
Phenomics Australia provides a national centre of expertise and service provision to deploy a more comprehensive and sophisticated range of Non-Animal model capabilities to understand the functional consequences of DNA sequence variation in the human genome for health and disease while maintaining the expertise for in vivo disease modelling and genome engineering. To meet the high demand for adaptable and scalable disease-modelling platforms for improved diagnosis, Precision Medicine for genetic disorders, and therapeutic development by both academia and the biopharmaceutical industry, Phenomics Australia offers Non-animal models services through a collaborative consortium of ten laboratories and facilities across Australia, operating at ANU (ANU Centre for Therapeutic Discovery), Perkins (Translational Cancer Research Program in Oncology), Monash (Monash Organoid Program & Monash Genome Modification Platform), MCRI (iPSC derivation & Gene Editing Facility), Peter Mac (Victorian Centre for Functional Genomics), UMelb (Centre for Stem Cell Systems & Stem Cell Disease Modelling Laboratory), UQ (In vitro Genome Engineering and Disease Modelling Service), and VCCRI (Stem Cell Production Facility iPSC Reprogramming Service)
