Genomics Platform Group | Professor Oliver Hofmann

With a growing need for data management, analysis and research computing
support – in particular due to the unprecedented growth of sequencing
data – researchers and clinicians will benefit from community-driven,
reusable approaches to process, analyse and aggregate large-scale
sequencing data.

Professor Hofmann's group is working on improved scalability and
reliability of sequencing workflows, better detection of changes in
cancer genomes, and aims to make tumour data, especially molecular data,
from medical institutions and other organisations, accessible for
research use in real time.

The group contributes to the development of community-developed
workflows to fully automate high throughput sequencing analysis. They
reuse existing software and solutions wherever possible to minimise
redundant method development. As part of this effort the team works
closely with the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH), the
Australian BioCommons Human Genomes Platform Project and other partners.
As members of the Australian Genomic Health  Alliance they develop a
large-scale Genomics Warehouse built on community standards and support
flagship projects with the management and dissemination of data.

The group is particularly focused on testing and validating new methods
using community-developed benchmarks to improve the chances of detecting
relevant somatic genome changes to aid in the diagnostic and treatment
of cancer patients.