PAPRSB Institute of Health Sciences (IHS) Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) has the opportunity to studygenomics of the Brunei population and diseases such as cancer which affect Bruneians suprisingly moreoften than we expect. Under the New Initiative Group (NIG) at UBD, the Precision Genomic Medicine (PGM)research group was established in September 2020. The vision of PGM is to become the national genomereference centre for studies into the Brunei population and for diseases such as cancer and others. Anumber of young qualified local PhD talents have joined IHS, and with a strong commitment from UBD fortraining and research, studies into population genomics and genomic medicine are high on the UBD researchagenda. IHS also has strong links with the Ministry of Health, Brunei Darussalam (MoH) and The BruneiCancer Centre (TBCC) at PJSC which enable access to valuable patient samples and data for investigationonce proper ethical approval is fulfilled. To achieve its vision PGM intend to generate genomic and genetic data from the Brunei population in healthand disease using the next generation sequencing (NGS) technology and bioinformatics analysis. PGM alsoenvisage to be the service provider for genetic testing for hereditary breast and ovarian cancers andmutation testing for a number of other cancers. PGM is expected to develop in two phases over the nextfive years, 2021 to 2025. Phase 1 will observe studies into pharmacogenomics, and development of genomedatabases for breast cancer and pilot projects in precision medicine in collaboration with TBCC. Phase 2hopes to establish PGM as a national educational, research and genetic testing centre in genomics forBrunei, with research collaborations with other genomic centres internationally. The following academics are members of PGM and can be contacted at IHS:Dr. Mas Rina Wati Haji Abdul Hamid (PGM Research Group Lead) Dr. Lu Zen Huat Prof. Dr Kenneth Kok Yuh YenAssociate Prof. Dr. Anne CunninghamB E Y O N D | O C T . T O D E C . 2 0 2 0 | I S S U E 2 2 3P R E C I S I O N G E N O M I C M E D I C I N E ( P G M )R E S E A R C H G R O U P T O P R O P E L U B D I N T O T H EE R A O F P R E C I S I O N M E D I C I N E R E S E A R C H PGM research group in the Biomedical Genomic Core Laboratory (BGCL)in the Integrated Science Building, UBD. Top left: Dr. Zen, who is promotinggenome sequencing as a powerful medical research tool. Top right: BGCL labmembers in action. Right: NextSeq 500 by Illumina is the main sequencingmachine used by PGM research group in their first projects to generatemassive human genetic data. Dr. Mas Rina Wati Haji Abdul Hamid, Senior Assistant ProfessorGeneration of large genomic datasets has been the research focus ofmany countries around the world in their response to the call to studythe genetics and genomics in their own population. This includes studiesof genetic origin and diversity of a population, heterogeneity ofdiseases like cancer and its response to treatment. The advent ofgenomic technologies and capabilities in data analysis have made theseefforts possible and economically-feasible. Brunei Darussalam is acountry of diverse ethnicities that makes it an interesting candidate fora study in population genomics. To date, Brunei genetic or genomic dataare not yet widely available.
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