Sydney Brainomics

We explore the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative diseases to gain insights into the onset and progression of disease and to assist in diagnosis. We provide high quality tissue and associated clinical and lifestyle information to other researchers so they can further the understanding of the brain in health and disease through their research.

We aim to:

• use histological and molecular techniques to understand how brain disorders develop
• understand the role lifestyle factors play in disease risk.

We use a range of histological and molecular techniques to understand the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders. We pay particular attention to the role of lifestyle factors in disease risk.

We also run the NSW Brain Tissue Resource Centre, which is funded by the National Institute of Health. The NSW Brain Tissue Resource Centre is an internationally recognised research facility that collects, characterises, stores, and distributes human post-mortem brain tissue to researchers worldwide.

As a leading research group in human neuropathology, we’ve improved understanding of brain diseases and played a role in the formulation of current diagnostic criteria.

We were the first to show that adult neurogenesis in the human hippocampus is negligible after infancy, that microglia proliferate in the brains of chronic alcoholics and there is increased ‘synaptic stripping’ by microglia in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients.

Through the work of the NSW Brain Tissue Resource Centre we’re able to facilitate research into brain function and dysfunction and promote the use of human post-mortem tissue by researchers.

Since opening in 2000, the NSW Brain Tissue Resource Centre has provided over 100,000 tissue samples to researchers who have published close to 500 publications. 

• The epidemiology of dementia using machine learning in collaboration with CPC and BMC researchers.
• The pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease with collaborators at the Washington University at St Louis.
• The pathomechanisms behind myelin loss in alcohol-related brain injury with collaborators at Brown University, Providence.
• How alcohol primes microglia to promote Alzheimer’s disease with collaborators at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.