We're pleased to invite you to the Perth Biostatistics/Bioinformatics Meetup. This is a joint event supported by the WA Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia (SSA), the SSA Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Section, Clinical Trials Enablement Platform WA (CTEP-WA), Perth Epidemiological Group (PEG), and the WA Health Translation Network (WAHTN).

Date: Tuesday, 11 June 2024.
Time: Refreshments at 5:30PM for a 6:00PM start
Venue: McCusker Auditorium, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research (North).

The purpose of this event is to bring together those with expertise and/or interest in medical and healthcare statistics in Perth. It is an opportunity to socialise and network, and encourage upcoming professionals to pursue a career in this worthwhile field.

There are two invited speakers this evening: Dr Emma de Jong, Dr Charlotte Lund Rasmussen.

Presentations

Toward Genome Assemblies for all Marine Vertebrates: Current Landscape and Challenges

Dr Emma de Jong, Ocean Genomes Laboratory, Minderoo OceanOmics Centre, UWA.

Marine vertebrate biodiversity is fundamental to ocean ecosystem health, but is threatened by climate change, overharvesting and habitat degradation. High-quality reference genomes are valuable foundational scientific resources that can inform conservation efforts. Consequently, global consortia are striving to produce reference genomes for representatives of all life. In this talk, I summarise the current landscape of available marine vertebrate reference genomes including their phylogenetic diversity and geographic hotspots of production. I will discuss key logistical and technical challenges that remain to be overcome if we are to realise the vision of a comprehensive reference genome library of all marine vertebrates.

About the Speaker

Emma de Jong is a mid-career researcher with expertise in biology, immunology, and transcriptomics, currently establishing bioinformatics workflows for de novo genome assembly for marine vertebrates at the Minderoo OceanOmics Centre at UWA.

The Use of Compositional Data Analysis in Physical Behaviour Research

Dr Charlotte Lund Rasmussen, ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Curtin University.

Physical behaviour research is a multidisciplinary field of research, which include the study of patterns, determinants and health effects of physical activities, sedentary behaviour and sleep among different population groups. Typically, physical behaviours are studied in terms of time duration or percentages of a 24-hour day. Consequently, proportions of time spent on specific behaviour during the day represent relative information and are intrinsically co-dependent and collinear. That is, more time spent on one behaviour will necessarily replace time spent on at least one other behaviour. Analysis of constrained data forming parts of a whole, known in the literature as compositional data, requires particular procedures; compositional data analysis (CoDA).

CoDA is well-known within several research fields, including geology, economy, chemistry, genetics and nutrition. Within physical behaviour research, the requirement of analysing physical behaviour data using CoDA is gradually being recognised, and there has been an increased use of CoDA to answer essential physical behaviour research questions. Nevertheless, major challenges remain for CoDA to be successfully implemented within this research field.

This presentation will provide a brief explanation of CoDA as a statistical approach for analysing compositional data and provide examples of how CoDA has been used within physical behaviour research to investigate patterns and health effects of physical behaviours. Finally, some of the main statistical and theoretical challenges that public health researchers face when conducting CoDA will be highlighted and discussed.

About the Speaker

Charlotte Lund Rasmussen is a Research Fellow at the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child and Curtin University, School of Allied Health. She obtained her PhD in Public Health from Copenhagen University, Denmark, in 2020. Her main research interest includes developing systems to obtain sensor-based measurements of physical behaviours and using novel statistical approaches to analyse types/patterns of daily behaviours. She has published 40 peer-reviewed articles, predominantly within this topic of research and internationally acknowledge for her expertise in analysing physical behaviour data using CoDA.

Venue & Parking

This event is held at Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research (North; Google Maps). The presentations will be hosted in McCusker Auditorium followed by refreshments in the building foyer.

Suggested parking is in Car Park 3A, accessed via Hampden Rd and Caladenia Cr.

Registration

This event is free but please register your attendance to assist with catering and meeting dietary requirements.

Please circulate this invitation amongst your networks to anyone who might be interested, especially students and those early in their careers.

If you have any queries, please contact the convenor, Shih Ching Fu.

Thank you again to all of this event's supporters.