Tēnā Kotou Katoa,
The Centre for Cancer Research (CCR) is proud to have started pur 2022 Seminar Series with the Flagship Seminar led by Prof. Cris Print on Thursday 31st March at 1pm.
CCR have identified this seminar as foundational due to the central focus on partnership with Māori, a transdisciplinary and inclusive approach, and the breadth and scale of the program of work.
These qualities embody the future direction of CCR: A transdisciplinary research centre focused on improving care, treatment, and prevention, for people, whanau, and communities affected by cancer, through Māori and community partnerships, research, education and training, and advanced clinical care.
We are so pleased to able to give recognition to all the researchers and communities involved in this project, and particularly grateful to those willing to come and talk to us about their learnings.
Ka nui te mihi Cris and whanau.
The Directors of the Centre for Cancer Research.
Synopsis of Rakeiora – generating a new precision medicine research infrastructure in NZ:
New Zealand has many high quality precision medicine research programs involving genomic data from patients across a range of diseases. However, this research often proceeds as relatively small-scale projects, with virtually no supporting computational infrastructure and little potential for collaboration.
We have few equivalents to large overseas initiatives such as Genome England. Many of NZ’s precision medicine academic studies and clinical trials have inconsistent protection of participants, outdated ethical, legal and governance frameworks and little focus on Māori Treaty rights or Māori & Pacific health needs.
Rakeiora is an MBIE-funded project that aims to address these issues. It is building a prototype for a safe, well-governed and effective infrastructure in which NZ researchers can store, analyse and collaborate using national-scale human whole genome data sets linked to health records. Rakeiora will primarily enable precision medicine research and trials but will also facilitate clinical care. While Rakeiora works with overseas programs such as Genome England, Gen3 and GA4GH to use the best international methods available, it is NZ-centric, focussed on co-innovation with Māori and is grounded in Te Tiriti and tikanga frameworks.
This workshop will describe the Rakeiora program then listen and discuss feedback to guide the program’s next steps and to identify new collaborations.
Speakers for this seminar include:
Professor Cris Print
University of Auckland
Dr Helen Wihongi
Director of Health Research, Auckland and Waitematā DHBs
Dr Michelle Wilson
Clinical Director Te Puriri o Te Ora, Cancer and Blood Research
Dr Ben Curran
University of Auckland