One Health is an integrated and interdependent approach that seeks to balance and optimise the health of people, animals, and the environment. Inherently collaborative, multi-sectorial, and transdisciplinary, the approach leverages expertise and resources to meet current and emerging local, regional and global threats. As recently highlighted by the COVID19 pandemic, biomedical and infectious disease biology research provide crucial pieces to the solution puzzle but so too does the integration of both animal and environmental research. At RSB researchers are examining and collaborating across disciplines to better understand the impacts, outcomes, and interconnections between people, animals and our shared environment.

Research Impact Cases

Developing new strategies to combat malaria

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Malaria was often regarded as one of the big three global infectious diseases (TB & HIV/AIDS). Despite the recent decrease in malaria related deaths, nearly half of the world’s population is at risk of malaria (WHO). As the recent COVID19 pandemic demonstrated, infectious diseases can be highly disruptive to global economies. As global climate change intensifies, so do the risks of pathogen spillover, increased transmission, and the emergence of new zoonotic diseases A cluster of RSB researchers are focused on understanding the biology of pathogens such as the malaria parasite and identifying new intervention strategies to combat them. Collectively they have more than 120 years of experience researching host-pathogen interactions. Together with dedicated Australian and global partners they work to uncover and exploit parasite vulnerabilities that will shape antiparasitic strategies tomorrow and long into the future.

Impact in Research Software Development in Genomic Era

IQ-TREE

The teams led by Assoc. Prof. Minh Bui and Prof. Rob Lanfear at ANU have merged their expertise in computer science and biology to create IQ-TREE, a free and open-source software. This innovative tool transforms DNA sequences into evolutionary insights, aiding research from the origins of early life to the spread of viruses. During the COVID-19 pandemic, IQ-TREE played a crucial role in the real-time tracking and detection of virus variants, helping scientists and public health officials manage outbreaks and informing policy decisions. IQ-TREE is pivotal software in scientific fields including genetics, biochemistry, microbiology, ecology, and virology. Supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, IQ-TREE exemplifies the impact of fundamental science and its rapid application as a global public good.

It spans many corners of biology and is not restricted to any particular subdiscipline. Medical practitioners and epidemiologists studying COVID-19 use it just as often as, say, those studying the evolution of lizard species. Given the central place of phylogenetic analysis in evolutionary practice, IQ-TREE is a standard part of the toolkit of vast swaths of the biological research community. 
Professor, Dept. of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University  

IQ-TREE is also the only software I use when teaching phylogeny courses: it is by far the method that makes data analysis (including e.g. model selection and branch support) the most simple and intuitive for the students, and additionally this way my students learn to use a reliable approach with a broad spectrum of applications. 
Research Staff Scientist EMBL European Bioinformatics Institute 

Dr Bui and his team published IQ-TREE 2 in May of 2020. It could infer an evolutionary tree from 17,000 COVID sequences in only three minutes, whereas version 1 had required 37 hours to do the same. It was a breakthrough. 
ANU College News, July 2023

Past & Present Funders

Australian National University
Australian Research Council
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
University of Vienna
FWF Austrian Science Fund
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Simons Foundation 

Find out more about IQ-TREE

Read the publication IQ-TREE 2: New Models and Efficient Methods for Phylogenetic Inference in the Genomic Era 
Read the ARDC article Dr Minh Bui and Prof Robert Lanfear Win Inaugural ARDC Eureka Prize for Research Software