Agricultural genetic stories from the International Congress of Genetics in Melbourne.

• A genomic future for Australian sheep?
• Paranoid plants: conflict in the immune system
• Australia’s wild relatives key to climate adaption
• Fruit and flower yield influenced by ‘shoot branch architecture’.
• Queen bee larvae need more TLC
• Beneficial insects develop insecticide resistance – and that’s not a good thing. 
• Barley loses diversity, wheat doesn’t
• OzWheat reveals which wheat genes to edit
• Improving rice nutrition: zinc, iron, beta carotene
• Are bin chickens spreading Japanese encephalitis?

Read on for more information about each story.

Friday at the Genetics Congress

• Inequity in genomic health for Indigenous Australians
• New guidelines released for achondroplasia, the most common form of disproportionate short stature
• Repatriation of remains and land management: Who owns ancient DNA and its story of deep history?
• The genomics of a liver or heart
• A genetic test to choose the right antidepressant
• “Māu Tēnā Kīwai o te Kete, Māku Tēnei:” Early detection of bowel cancer for Māori population

Genetic health stories from the International Congress of Genetics in Melbourne. Read on for more information about each story.

Thursday at the Genetics Congress

• Are bin chickens spreading Japanese encephalitis? Anjana Karawita from CSIRO says the native ibis could be implicated in the spread.
• Platypus viability threatened by dams, genetic analysis reveals. Luis Mijangos, Bill Sherwin, and colleagues from UNSW show how dams are separating our platypus populations.
• Bilby scats, DNA and Indigenous kids: Carolyn Hogg from University of Sydney has designed a scat-based test to assess the health of endangered bilby populations.
• Victorian koalas are more isolated, according to University of Sydney researchers, as bushfires take their toll.
• What got into your dog? Lucas Huggins has devised a portable test to detect a wide range of parasite infections simultaneously.
• What are the causes and consequences of sex reversal in fish? Unexpected impacts of a warming world.

More on all these stories below.

Media release from the Australian Alliance for Indigenous Genomics (ALIGN)

A national alliance of the brightest minds in genomic science, academia, policy makers, industry and Indigenous leaders will work to break down barriers to ensure Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can benefit from advances in genomic medicine if they choose.

The Australian Alliance for Indigenous Genomics (ALIGN) has been formed to ensure Indigenous Australians are considered and included in the application of genomic medicine – where information from DNA is used to better inform patient risk, diagnosis and care. Supported by Telethon Kids Institute, the Australian National University and 28 other key partners, ALIGN will be governed by an Indigenous Council to ensure every ‘gift’ of DNA provided by Indigenous Australians is treated with respect.

The International Congress of Genetics returns to Australia

Today

• 4 pm: Evensong celebrating science and faith at St Pauls Cathedral – more below
• 6 pm: Congress opening ceremony with Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas, and Congress Chair Kathryn North, Melbourne Convention Centre

Monday

• Capturing the genetic code of every species in the Tree of Life.
• Nobel Laureate Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard, African Biogenome Project leader Anne Muigai, Science Executive Editor Valda Vinson on Women in Science – unique journeys to different peaks, with Jen Martin.

Media welcome

“Nothing about us, without us”

National Indigenous genomics initiative launch

Sunday 16 July 2023 10 am

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre

A national centre launched today will bring the benefits of genomics medicine to Indigenous Australians, who still have a life expectancy 10 years less that the general population.

“80 per cent of this life expectancy gap is due to chronic disease,” says Alex Brown, Lead of The Australian Alliance for Indigenous Genomics (ALIGN) and Professor of Indigenous Genomics at the Telethon Kids Institute and the Australian National University. Alex is a member of the Yuin Nation and grew on the NSW South Coast.

“Australia is on the cusp of a new era in personalised medicine that will bring deeper insights into common diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer,” he says.

“ALIGN is a commitment designed by Indigenous people, for Indigenous people, to offer the benefit of genomic medicine to all,” he says.

“Its basic premise is ‘nothing about us, without us.’ This is critical to ensure equity is achieved in health outcomes,” he says.

International Genetics Congress returns

• When will genetics deliver on the hype and truly guide your healthcare?
• It’s in the air and water – a campaign to find and protect Australia’s missing plant and animal species
• Growing rice without paddies and other plant breeding tricks
• Life in the most extreme environments
• How flies solve the riddles of rare human diseases
• Catch-22: perils, promises, and profit from indigenous peoples’ DNA

Plus

• Celebrating genetics at St Pauls
• Counting peas: Mendel’s 201^st birthday
• An oratorio on the Origins of the Universe, of Life, of Species, of Humanity 
• Are super athletes born or made? Genetics vs Sport 

Some of the hundreds of stories to be discovered at the 23^rd International Genetic Congress, 16 to 21 July at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. The media are welcome.

The idea that Australian can lead in research, but can’t capture the benefits will be challenged in Adelaide this week.

Cooperative Research Australia’s 2023 conference at the Adelaide Convention Centre will reveal how Australian researchers are successfully turning research into innovations that are transforming society and creating jobs and wealth.

Speakers include State and Federal science ministers and chief scientists.

Media welcome, contact Niall Byrne, niall@scienceinpublic.com.au for accreditation.

Macquarie University researchers have demonstrated a new way of linking personal records and protecting privacy. The first application is in identifying cases of rare genetic disorders. There are many other potential applications across society.

The research will be presented at the 18th ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Melbourne on 12 July.

A five-year-old boy in the US has a mutation in a gene called GPX4, which he shares with just 10 other children in the world. The condition causes skeletal and central nervous system abnormalities. There are likely to be other children with the disorder recorded in hundreds of health and diagnostic databases worldwide, but we do not know of them, because their privacy is guarded for legal and commercial reasons.

But what if records linked to the condition could be found and counted while still preserving privacy? Researchers from the Macquarie University Cyber Security Hub have developed a technique to achieve exactly that. The team includes Dr Dinusha Vatsalan and Professor Dali Kaafar of the University’s School of Computing and the boy’s father, software engineer Mr Sanath Kumar Ramesh, who is CEO of the OpenTreatments Foundation in Seattle, Washington.