Computational Biology involves the application of mathematics, statistics, and computer science to the study of biology. The focus of our research is to make sense of biomedical data and biological systems. We use tools such as high performance computing with the aim of understanding and curing disease.

Computational biology research at WEHI

The disciplines of computational biology and bioinformatics play key roles in basic and translational research at WEHI. As well as having a dedicated Bioinformatics division, we have researchers with expertise in computational biology and bioinformatics embedded in many other divisions. The Centre for Computational Biology brings these research scientists together.

Our computational biology researchers are focused on:

• Understanding the genetic drivers of cancer and how to cure it.
• Developing computational methods to understand tumour evolution.
• Understanding how immune cell populations grow and differentiate.
• Analysing the genomes of disease-causing parasites, including the malaria parasite, Plasmodium spp, and the scabies mite, Sarcoptes scabiei.
• Analysing the microbiomes of children at risk of type I diabetes.
• Many other projects using computation to understand and cure human disease.

Key aspects of our computational biology program are:

• Developing state-of-the-art high performance computing resources in the Institute.
• Facilitating access to external computational resources.​