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PhD - Conferral date pending (Queensland University of Technology)
Dr Kim Ngan Tran is an early career researcher who completed her PhD at Queensland University of Technology in 2023. Her thesis focused on investigating the genetic architecture of chronic kidney disease in the Norfolk Island isolate and the large-scale UK Biobank prospective cohort. She is now working as a bioinformatician at the QUT Genomics Research Centre, where she continues her work on the Norfolk Island project. Concurrently, she is involved in developing next-generation DNA technologies for the identification of fallen Australian soldiers. She possesses a wide range of bioinformatics skillsets, including omics data analyses, programming and scripting languages, advanced statistical methods, and database management.
Trained in a wet lab as a Master student in Molecular Engineering, Ngan discovered her interest in computational biology during a project aimed at understanding the effect of outer space microgravity on transcriptomes. She then continued her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at Queensland University of Technology, receiving in-depth training as a bioinformatician.
Her PhD thesis primarily focused on the genetic heritage of the Norfolk Island isolate, an admixed population with ancestors tracing back to 11 Bounty Mutineers and their Polynesian wives in the 18th century. She has conducted extensive research on the genetics of Norfolk Islanders, including validating and expanding the island pedigree based on genetic information, and analyzing the degree of admixture and how admixture characteristics, as well as variants with functional founder effects, affect disease susceptibility. Ngan and her colleagues identified a novel genetic locus related to kidney function, which is elevated in frequency in Norfolk Island but not commonly found in global populations. She has received several awards for her work on Norfolk Island, including the People's Choice Award at the CGPH 2023 Genomic Showcase, as well as nominations for QUT Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Awards.
Currently, Ngan is actively involved in the QUT project “Development of Next Generation DNA Technologies for Identification of Fallen Australian Service Members,” where she is responsible for developing bioinformatics pipelines to analyze DNA samples from historical remains from World War I and II. Given the highly degraded nature of the extracted DNA, she and her team are investigating methods to recover as much genetic information as possible to identify unrecovered war casualties. Additionally, she is also developing analysis techniques for predicting biogeographical ancestry and externally visible characteristics in the highly degraded remains.
In terms of mentoring responsibilities, Ngan is currently co-supervising a PhD student working on genomic analysis and providing assistance to students and staff members at QUT Genomics Research Centre in data analysis and working with high-performance computing clusters.