William R Reay GENEMAPPERS 2024

William R Reay

Dr William Reay is a research fellow in Statistical Genetics at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research and currently holds a highly competitive NHMRC EL1 Investigator Fellowship (2024-2028). Dr Reay moved to Hobart from The University of Newcastle in 2024 where he played an important role in driving the genetics research within the Precision Medicine Research Program. Dr Reay is motivated to use genomics and other forms of big data to better understand and treat complex human disorders. He seeks to work at the interface of discovery and translational research, with his work on genetics informed treatment selection already proceeding to current clinical trials. Through this work, Dr Reay works with many stakeholders including researchers, clinicians, and consumers across a variety of disease areas, with a particular interest in cardiovascular, psychiatric, and neurological phenotypes. In particular, Dr Reay's research focus includes: 1. Using genomics to identify new drug targets and opportunities to repurpose existing drugs for new uses 2. Enhancing how genomics can better inform nutritional interventions 3.Better prediction of treatment response and side-effects 4. Leveraging genetics to better understand the biological mechanisms that link different disorders 5. Understanding how to optimally use different forms of genomic data for risk prediction Dr Reay has been a CI on almost 3 million AUD in competitive funding despite only being just over 2 years post-PhD and his work has already shown progress on the path to rapid translation. His scholarly work has been highly cited in a short time and he has led studies in some of the highest-impact journals in biomedical research including Circulation, Nature Reviews Genetics, The American Journal of Human Genetics, Nature Communications, and Science Advances.