Functional Genomics

Our goal is to improve human health by defining the underlying principles that control human biology and disease. Towards this goal, we develop and employ powerful new genomic technologies that show us how human disease develops, and how we can target the underlying causes. We have a focus on pain biology and other age-related diseases of the nervous system, and we apply new genomic technologies to identify genes and mechanisms controlling pain. We have a particular interest in better understanding how painful venoms hurt us, and how we can block these as well as use this knowledge to help treat chronic pain or other major diseases.

From the technical side, we primarily use pooled CRISPR screening to find new critical pain genes and pathways which we then investigate further using transgenic animals or human stem cells differentiated into human cells, tissues, and organoids. Therapeutically, we are targeting critical pain pathways using synthetic mRNA we design and evolve which we then encapsulate in lipid nanoparticles towards altering disease course for pain and other major diseases.

University of Sydney

The Neely Lab is based in the Charles Perkins Centre, which was completed in June 2014, and offers state-of-the-art facilities. The Neely Lab and the Charles Perkins Centre are affiliated with the University of Sydney's (USYD) Camperdown campus. USYD has over 50000 students spread across multiple campuses within Sydney, Australia. USYD was the first university to be established in Australia in the 1850’s and is currently ranked as the world’s 20th most reputable university and its graduates are considered the 4th most employable in the world.* 

* QS Top University Rankings [View here]

*CPC photo by Jason Tong click here