Trevor Wilson and Catherine Itman

Genomic Technologies at the MHTP

Trevor completed his PhD at Monash University, investigating the intrathymic development of T cells after which he pursued his interests in autoimmunity during a postdoctoral appointment at the University of California.  After returning to Australia, Trevor established his expertise in genetic and genomic technologies, broadly applied to immunity and autoimmunity.  In 2011, Trevor transitioned into a research delivery role within the Medical Genomics Facility in the Monash Health Translation Precinct; a joint initiative by Monash University, Monash Health and the Hudson Institute of Medical Research, with a focus on next generation sequencing technologies.

Catherine has a long-held interest in life sciences, with a broad background spanning research, education and business operations.  She completed her PhD in male reproductive biology at MIMR and went on to hold lectureship positions and lead a research group before taking up the position of Manager of the newly established MHTP Functional Genomics Facility in March of this year.

The close interaction of the Medical Genomics Platform and Functional Genomics Facility, and their strategic co-location at the MHTP, allows researchers to accelerate research discoveries through the wealth of expertise and comprehensive range of established and nascent technologies available on site.  Capabilities offered by Medical Genomics include Sanger sequencing, microarray, high content screening, single cell analysis, RTqPCR and next generation sequencing, with instruments including the Illumina HiSeq3000, HiSeq1500 & MiSeq for whole genome, exome, targeted capture, targeted amplicon, ribodepleted RNASeq, polyA RNASeq, smRNA, mitochondrial & pathogen investigations.  The Functional Genomics facility offers pooled screening for unbiased, systematic, high-throughput gain-of-function and loss-of-function screens in human and mouse cells and, capitalizing on the latest in pooled CRISPR/Cas9 and bar-coded ORF libraries, offers a complete gene discovery and characterisation pipeline.