BDS Lab: Industry Showcase

Using Virtual Reality to Create Certainty in Clinical Decisions using Complex Genomics

Research Leads
Professor Paul Kennedy
A/Prof Dan Catchpoole 

Collaborators
The Children’s Hospital at Westmead
Western Sydney University
UTS Animal Logic Academy, Samurai Punk
Sony Foundation
Tour de Cure 

The complex human genome underpins the biological mechanisms of a patient’s cancer. Presently the knowledge provided by the genome is inaccessible to clinicians making treatment decisions for patients.

We develop machine learning and data analytics methods to model patients in a virtual reality space emphasising appropriate genomic similarities and differences. Our VR Technology allows cancer specialists and analysts to move into the 3D space and to explore the patient cohort from within. It enables clinicians to find patients with genomic similarities with other sufferers, moving far beyond simple statistical clustering methods to enable clinicians to uncover genomic relationships, and inform decision making for treatment regimens with a breadth and accuracy that has not been previously possible.

Computer screen with genetic clusters shown as red and blue spheres

Clinicians can explore the three dimensional space of the patient cohort with data simplified into clusters of genomic similarities, for clinicians to make more informed decisions of treatment regimes for individual patients

 

Paediatric patient in bed, smiling

Acknowledgement of Country

UTS acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the Boorooberongal people of the Dharug Nation, the Bidiagal people and the Gamaygal people, upon whose ancestral lands our university stands. We would also like to pay respect to the Elders both past and present, acknowledging them as the traditional custodians of knowledge for these lands.