Melbourne scientists unveil VR-Omics, a next-gen platform reshaping spatial gene analysis and unlocking new insights into cardiac rhabdomyoma.
A software platform developed in Melbourne is giving researchers a never-before-seen view into the biology of childhood heart tumours – an approach that could transform how rare paediatric diseases are understood and treated.
In a study published this week in Genome Biology, researchers from Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) introduced VR-Omics, a tool that combines spatial gene analysis with immersive 2D and 3D virtual reality visualisations.
Developed by Professor Mirana Ramialison and her team, the platform has already uncovered novel features of cardiac rhabdomyoma, the most common heart tumour in children.
While most cardiac rhabdomyomas are benign and detected before or shortly after birth, some can grow dangerously large, disrupting cardiac function and causing severe complications – including heart failure. Treatment options are limited, often invasive and carry significant risk.
“When the tumours cause severe health complications, treatment options are limited and include surgically removing part of the heart, which may lead to further complications and death,” Professor Ramialison said.
“Unfortunately, it’s not well understood why these tumours form.”
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By analysing heart tissue from three affected children, VR-Omics identified previously undetectable cellular behaviours and genetic markers within the tumours, providing insights that could pave the way for better diagnostics and targeted interventions. This approach can be applied to a range of other childhood diseases.
“VR-Omics generates 3D visualisations of the cells within human tissue based on large collections of patient data,” Professor Ramialison said.
“This could allow for greater analysis of human tissue compared to other methods.”
Professor Ramialison also benchmarked the software against existing state-of-the-art methods, finding it performed better in all analysis steps.
“VR-Omics has a unique capacity to analyse large datasets, which allows it to explore new biological mechanisms in rare tissue sections, like those from cardiac rhabdomyoma,” she said.
“The technology will enable more biological discoveries that could help better understand many childhood conditions.”
Researchers from the Melbourne Centre for Cardiovascular Genomics and Regenerative Medicine (CardioRegen), the University of Konstanz in Germany, Novo Nordisk Foundation Centre for Stem Cell Medicine (reNEW), University of Melbourne and Monash University also contributed to the findings.
