The University of Otago and University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) team which attended SING Micronesia— from left to right: Nigani Willie, Phil Wilcox, Lisa Matisoo-Smith, Pascale Lubbe, Allison Miller, Murray Cadzow, Tristan Paulino and Paul Pumuye (UPNG).
The University of Otago’s commitment to developing genomics capability with Indigenous Pacific communities has been strengthened through a new collaboration with the University of Guam.
Otago’s researchers helped establish SING Micronesia while in Guam in late July, as part of a project studying gout and other metabolic diseases in the Pacific.
The Summer internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics (SING) is an international consortium that develops opportunities for Indigenous peoples to engage in genomics research and education, including in New Zealand.
School of Biomedical Sciences Dean and project co-investigator Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith says building capability in the Pacific is an on-going commitment for the co-designed gout research programme.
“It is a crucial part of ensuring Indigenous peoples can drive research with their own data,” she says.
“Establishing SING Micronesia was a good approach to progress this. Being part of the inaugural SING Micronesia workshop was a positive way to include indigenous CHamoru and other Micronesian voices and perspectives in genomic research in this corner of the Pacific.
“The workshops were an excellent opportunity to upskill students and researchers in bioethics and data sovereignty, as well as practical laboratory methods, applications and bioinformatic analysis.”
She says the success of SING Micronesia has also further cemented relationships between the two universities, and Otago is thrilled to have played a part in this.
Tristan Paulino, a PhD student at the University of Otago and lead organiser for SING Micronesia, says SING Micronesia has value now and into the future.
“SING Micronesia created a valuable platform for Indigenous Micronesians to address the historical distrust of research in the region, discuss strategies for engaging with current biomedical researchers, and set priorities for how genetic research and technology should be utilised within their own communities when the opportunity arises.”
Understanding how the genetic composition of Pacific people affects their metabolic health
A major Marsden Fund project that started in 2019 has been researching the genetics of metabolic disease in Pacific people.
The interdisciplinary and international team, led by Dr Anna Gosling and Professor Matisoo-Smith from the Department of Anatomy, with collaborators from the University of Guam and the University of Papua New Guinea, set out to find the links between Pacific ancestry and the high rate of metabolic disease seen across the region.
Using the latest genomic and bioinformatics tools they have been looking for patterns to provide some answers on how ancestry, selection, and admixture (the mix of two different populations into a new population) have shaped Pacific genomes.
To date the team have collected samples and health data from over 800 people and have now sequenced whole genomes from more than half of those samples, from a range of Micronesian and Papua New Guinean communities, including Kiribati communities living in Aotearoa.
Lisa says better understanding of the evolution of metabolic disease will help to identify its prevalence and effects on Pacific peoples, their families and their communities.
Understanding its causes other than diet and lifestyle choices can also help to destigmatise metabolic diseases like gout, diabetes, and obesity.
“Ultimately, that information will help to target new treatments for diseases like gout, improving health and well-being for populations across the whole Pacific,” she says.
Three Pacific PhD students are working on the project. Tristan is completing his thesis on the Guam and Western Micronesian communities, and Bwenaua Biiri, originally from Kiribati, is researching metabolic disease in New Zealand Kiribati communities. Nigani Willie, from Papua New Guinea, is being funded by a Maurice Wilkins Centre PhD scholarship to study at Otago, looking at connections between gout and malaria in Papua New Guinea.
Kōrero by Claire Grant, Communications Advisor, School of Biomedical Sciences