Gut health research rotation available at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in 2026

This 10-to-12-week research rotation will suit RMOs with a specific interest in gastrointestinal health and the biological, genomic, and environmental factors that shape gastrointestinal disease risk and treatment outcomes. The program provides a unique opportunity to work across both wet lab (sample collection, processing, sequencing and genotyping) and dry lab (bioinformatics, statistical and computational analyses) environments. A defining strength of this rotation is the strong integration between the bench, at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, and the bedside, at RBWH. This focus ensures that participants not only develop technical skills in laboratory and data science, but also appreciate the translational pipeline, i.e. how research discoveries can inform and improve patient care in gastroenterology. By participating in this rotation, Resident Medical Officers will gain essential skills to critically analyse data, formulate and test hypotheses, and interpret findings in a clinical context. Training and supervision will be provided by biomedical scientists and clinician researchers in the Gut Health Laboratory at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.

Rotation objectives:

• Develop and extend understanding of disease risk in the gastrointestinal tract, with a focus on inflammatory and immune-mediated conditions

• Gain exposure to polygenic risk scores: how they are generated, validated, and their emerging role in clinical practice

• Develop a basic understanding in gut metagenomics and microbiome analysis, learning to interpret large-scale sequencing datasets and assess their translational potential

• Examine the application of a multiomics approach (genomics, metagenomics, transcriptomics, clinical metadata) to improve risk prediction and patient stratification in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

• Participate in mentored research activities, wet lab skills including extraction of DNA, dataset handling and some exposure to statistical analyses

• Engage with an interdisciplinary team of clinicians, scientists, and PhD students, fostering professional growth and networking.