The overarching objective of the Genomics Transplant Group is to improve the lives of patients with chronic kidney disease by improving access to, and long-term outcomes of, kidney transplantation. Our aim is to incorporate genomics into clinical practice to inform clinical decision making, develop risk prediction tools and to use risk stratification to design novel, more focused, clinical trials of transplant immunosuppression and to promote precision medicine for the care of transplant recipients. To achieve this, we combine a deep understanding of disease biology, with genomic and patient level data and the computational power to analyse the data.
Recent Achievements
The research group is well funded with an NHMRC Ideas Grant (CIA Dr Jennifer Li) and an MRFF Genomics Futures Grant (CIA Philip O’Connell);
- NHMRC Ideas Grant: Precision Medicine Advancing Renal Transplantation. Investigators – J Li, PJ O’Connell, B Nankivell, M Shingde, A Raghubar, A Sharma
- MRFF Genomics Health Futures Mission: Donor and Recipient Polygenic Risk Scores Predictive of Late Graft Loss. Investigators: PJ O’Connell (CIA), W Lim, J Li, K Wyburn, S Alexander, S Grey, G Wong, E Patrick, NM Rogers, S Chadban.
Developed and contributed to two large patient cohort studies, GoCAR and AUSCAD to study genetic factors impacting graft outcome.
Developed a transcriptomic transplant atlas that can be employed to develop pan-organ biomarkers of allograft dysfunction.
Recent publications

Decoding the hallmarks of allograft dysfunction with a comprehensive pan-organ transcriptomic atlas. Nature Med 2024 Jun 18. doi: 10.1038/s41591-024-03030-6. Online ahead of print.
June 2024

The Utility of Spatial Transcriptomics for Solid Organ Transplantation. Transplantation 2023 Jul 1;107(7):1463-1471. doi: 10.1097/TP.0000000000004466. Epub 2023 Jun 20.
July 2023

Prospective observational study to validate a next generation sequencing blood RNA signature to predict early kidney transplant rejection. AM J Transplant 2024 Mar;24(3):436-447
March 2024

Key driver genes as potential therapeutic targets in renal allograft rejection. JCI Insight 2020 Aug 6;5(15):e136220. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.136220 (* co-corresponding author)
August 2024

Biopsy transciptome expression profiling to identify kidney transplants at risk of chronic injury: a multicenter prospective study. Lancet 2016, 388(10048):983-93.
July 2016
NAME | ROLE |
Professor Philip O’Connell | Group Leader |
Dr Jennifer Li | Co-lead |
Professor Steven Alexander | Collaborator |
Dr Ellis Patrick | Bio-informatics |
Professor Natasha Rogers | Senior researcher |