JCU bioinformatician Justin Lee joins QCIF

James Cook University bioinformatician Dr Justin Lee has joined QCIF to help create an Australian platform for collaborative genome annotation and visualisation. 

The platform will enable researchers nationally and internationally to work together on analysing the structure and function of genetic transcripts, speeding up the process far beyond the current traditional means of collaboration and publication.

This collaboration between QCIF and the Australian BioCommons will enable Justin to remain based at the Centre for Tropical Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology at JCU’s Townsville campus while working extensively with platform developers in Brisbane.

Justin will work on the project as Platform Developer and System Administrator. 

QCIF Bioinformatics Director Dr Dominique Gorse, who leads the platform’s deployment, said: “I am very pleased about this opportunity brought by the BioCommons to have a team member embedded at JCU. In addition to his contribution to the genome annotation platform, Justin will continue to participate in bioinformatics tutoring at JCU and be the point of contact for JCU researchers to QCIF’s bioinformatics service.”

Prior to joining QCIF, Justin worked as a bioinformatician at JCU, primarily on developing a clinical cancer genomics pipeline and as a bioinformatics tutor.

“My contract with JCU was ending, and I jumped at the opportunity to work with QCIF Bioinformatics. In many ways, my role at QCIF Bioinformatics continues the research-supporting activities I've been performing for biologists, and other scientists and engineers, for many years,” said Justin.

Justin has a Bachelor of Computer Science (Hons) from Charles Darwin University and a PhD in biologically-inspired hardware and software from the Queensland University of Technology. He has a strong background in programming, Linux and open-source software.

Before joining JCU, he was employed as a Senior Research Support Specialist in QUT’s High Performance Computing and Research Support Group. There, he worked closely with researchers in biology and bioinformatics in particular, helping them achieve their research outcomes by providing high performance computing, eResearch, programming and other computational assistance. 

His postdoctoral work was in intelligent transport systems with QUT's Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety (CARRS-Q). He has also worked in several research assistant positions in machine learning and autonomous robotics and tutored in a wide range of computational subjects.