A pioneering project led by the University of Tasmania's Menzies Institute for Medical Research Professor Eric Moses, has been recognised as some of the top research in Australia in the National Health and Medical Research Council's (NHMRC) "10 of the Best" list for 2025.
In its 16th year, "10 of the Best" honours the most exceptional Australian health and medical researchers who work to prevent disease, enhance detection and treatment methods, and deepen our understanding of common health conditions.
In collaboration with researchers from the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute and the University of Western Australia, the project utilised data from the Busselton Health Study (BHS) to investigate cardiovascular disease (CVD) risks.
The BHS has been running for over 50 years and is one of the largest unique data sources, and researchers were able to access DNA sequences of over 4,500 people from the BHS data.
Professor Moses told the National Health and Medical Research Council: "We wanted to understand the relationship between metabolism and risk of CVD disease, so we combined lipidomics10, genomics, statistics and clinical data and generated novel insights with incredible potential for practical applications."
Through the research, a web portal was produced, which allows for researchers worldwide to access the datasets, achieved high profile publications and received many requests to collaborate.
"While we've brought some computers to their knees with the amount of computational load and the development of new algorithms, this research has demonstrated what's possible when you bring lipidomics and genomics together," Professor Moses said.
Professor Moses has recently received another NHMRC grant , for a project that aims to develop a clinical test for women who may be at greater risk of CVD after having pre-eclampsia during pregnancy. This will also use large patient datasets plus machine learning.
