Digital image analysis is no longer a “nice to have” in precision medicine - it’s foundational. Our latest Digital Research Skills Network (DRSN) session at WIMR focused on QuPath, an open-source platform for bioimage analysis, led by Elizabeth Dunn from the University of Sydney and The Westmead Institute for Medical Research. In this workshop, we explored how QuPath can be used to analyse multiplex fluorescence whole slide images.

Precision medicine won’t scale without precision data sharing. A recent review in Computers in Biology and Medicine explores one of the biggest bottlenecks in genomic medicine: how whole genome sequencing data is actually shared in clinical practice.

The key insight? Research-grade data sharing is not the same as clinical-grade data sharing.

Some research feels incremental - and then there is the kind that quietly redraws the map. At the Westmead Health Precinct and University of Sydney (Westmead Applied Research Centre), a truly multidisciplinary team is working across boundaries that do not often meet in the same room - radiation oncologists, cardiac electrophysiologists, cardiologists, radiation therapists, engineers and basic scientists - united by a single question: How can we better treat patients with medically refractory, life-threatening arrhythmias? Out Westmead Cell Imaging Facility, led by Hui Zhang and with Specialist Hong Yu, have supported this work with our Stellaris 5 Confocal Microscope.

This image stops you for a moment. What you’re looking at is a whole-mount histological section of an ovine left ventricle with chronic scar. It is part of a project led by Anugrah Nair, supervised by Dr Poornima Balaji at Westmead Health Precinct and University of Sydney (Westmead Applied Research Centre), investigating experimental and commercially available catheter ablation energy modalities and how effectively they treat chronic ventricular scar. Out Westmead Cell Imaging Facility, led by Hui Zhang and Specialist Hong Yu have supported this with our Olympus VS200 Slide Scanner.

The Westmead Institute for Medical Research is proud to currently be participating in the #InternationalFreezerChallenge - and the results speak for themselves. By adjusting the set-point temperature of 12 ultra-low temperature (-80°C) freezers, we’ve achieved:
• 96 kWh of electricity saved every day
• That’s roughly the daily energy use of ~6 average Australian households
• ~35 MWh saved each year

We love seeing the people behind PrecisionGo contributing their expertise to the broader precision medicine and research community.

Our Lead Bioinformatician, Dr Brian Gloss, is an author on a 2026 publication led by Professor Russell Dale (WIMR) and A/Prof Markus Hofer (CPC) titled "Cumulative environmental exposures adversely impact social behaviour and are associated with dysregulation of genes and proteins involved in epigenetic, ribosomal, and immune regulation in male mice."

This work is a strong reminder of just how critical high-quality, experienced histology is to maximising the value of research using precious human samples. Our Westmead Histology Facility team, led by Li Ma, has been working closely with a researcher from the Storr Liver Unit at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research to optimise an Oil Red O staining protocol for hepatocyte organoid sections. Careful protocol optimisation like this ensures lipid-containing vacuoles are visualised clearly and consistently, protecting the integrity of downstream analysis and interpretation.

WIMR is taking on the Freezer Challenge! The Freezer Challenge, organised by MyGreenLab and I2SL: International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories, motivates laboratories to optimise cold storage practices across refrigerators, freezers, and cold rooms. By improving storage methods and reducing energy consumption, labs can significantly lower their environmental impact while also saving on operational costs.

We’re proud to share this powerful video showcasing how biobanking infrastructure underpins research success across disciplines and disease areas

We’re excited to share a new capability at the hashtag#Westmead hashtag#Imaging hashtag#Facility: imaging GFP⁺ brain tumours in live animals using our IVIS system within the Preclinical Imaging Facility at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research and Westmead Research Hub.

The WIMR Scientific Platforms team would like to sincerely thank you for your support and trust - we’ve been pleased to support your projects throughout 2025.

This year, we’re proud to see our user community continue to grow, with 1,300+ active users from 320+ research groups across 64 organisations, supporting 820+ active projects. It’s especially exciting to see our community expand beyond Westmead, with 40 non-Westmead academic organisations and 16 commercial partners across Australia and internationally using our technologies and services.

PrecisionGo was delighted to sponsor the Australian Virology Society (AVS) 2025 Online Symposium Local ECR livestream hosted recently at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research. The afternoon showcased an impressive breadth of early-career researcher (ECR) work, spanning HIV, tuberculosis, herpesviruses, SARS-CoV-2, cytomegalovirus, and immune cell biology.

Today we celebrated our achievements, reflected on the challenges we’ve overcome in 2025, and started mapping out our goals for 2026. I’m so proud to work with this dream team—a group where every member is generous in supporting each other, highly collaborative, and always striving for excellence.

2025 has been a year of strong delivery and growing impact for PrecisionGo. We've established our one-stop-shop solution for precision medicine in January with 3 discovery pipelines, and are already supporting 38 projects across 21 collaborating groups from 11 institutions, including international collaborations with Singapore University among others.

Tuberculosis (TB) and HIV are each complex on their own, but when they occur together, outcomes are significantly worse. For years, we’ve known this clinically, but why the combination accelerates HIV disease has been unclear. A new study led by researchers at WIMR with international partners helps illuminate the biological story behind this.

PrecisionGo visits Nanjing at the 7th National Cell Analysis Conference and the 6th Sino–US Flow Cytometry Workshop through our very own Maggie Wang.

Nature Reviews Genetics: Extraordinary advances in genomic science have defined the twenty-first century, transforming our understanding of human biology in both health and disease.

Yesterday, The Westmead Institute for Medical Research proudly brought 20 high-school children, finalists of the Future Health World Building Conference 2025, through our building to briefly hear about PrecisionGo and the future of health through the lens of precision medicine.

Last week, two of our Biobanking team attended the ABNA National Conference. The importance of these gatherings are not just sharing of knowledge, but to meet old and new friends and understand the potential of biobanking - not only about human samples, but also Antarctic ice cores and environmental archives.