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Paulette Barahona

Children's Cancer Institute Australia, Genea, University of New South Wales - Randwick Campus, University of New South Wales, Sydney IVF

ORCID iD 0000-0002-3184-8499
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About

Paulette is a senior health professional with over 20 years’ experience in clinical research development and medical genomics health sector, she is highly skilled in molecular genetics associated with inherited disease, reproductive genomics, prenatal analysis, oncology and relationship management.

Paulette joined the UNSW affiliated Children’s Cancer Institute in 2017 to support and drive the development and implementation of a precision medicine program for children with high risk cancer, and is currently the ZERO Clinical Operations Manager of the National Zero Childhood Cancer Precision Medicine Program at Children’s Cancer Institute. ZERO is Australia’s first and most comprehensive precision medicine program for children with cancer. Led jointly by Children’s Cancer Institute and Kids Cancer Centre at Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick, the program involves collaboration between all major Australian clinical and research groups working in childhood cancer.

Paulette played an integral role in the development of a national multidisciplinary curation team and currently leads the somatic and germline curation and interpretation of whole genome, transcriptome, and methylome data. Paulette devised and implemented our national Zero Childhood Cancer Precision Medicine curation platform with curation protocols and training modules, and has educated and trained several students, scientists and clinicians. Additionally, she worked with key stakeholders to develop and implement streamlined patient results reporting mechanisms to the Multidisciplinary Tumour Board and continues to contribute to the development of clinical research reports to the treating clinicians and led curation training of clinical research fellows within the National Zero Childhood Cancer Precision Medicine clinical study.

ZERO’s Nature Medicine 2020 paper (IF 53.44) featured in the American Journal of Human Genetics (AJHG) “Genomics Medicine year in review: 2021” within the 10 highlighted publications identifying ten key advances in applying genomic information to clinical care. The article, senior authored by the Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, USA, is a validation of the calibre of the ZERO Program and the potential level of its research impact.

Paulette joined Genea (formally known as Sydney IVF) in 2003 where she gained almost 15 years’ experience working in clinical R&D, clinical diagnostics, medical genomics, developing clinically implemented assays associated with drug discovery/toxicity assays, inherited diseases, human reproduction, single cell analysis, prenatal analysis and circulating cell free DNA. Paulette has extensive experience with high-throughput complex genomic data analysis/interpretation, single cell analysis and variant calling/classification. In 2011, Paulette was appointed lead scientist for Personalised Medicine (Next Generation Sequencing Technologies) to provide customised medical and clinical laboratory products to complement Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) and prenatal management. Paulette co-managed Genea’s clinical diagnostic in-house Non-Invasive Prenatal Screening (NIPS) program which involved a strong ability to work in a clinical environment with frequent interactions with clinicians, healthcare professionals and patients. Paulette was directly involved with the extensive research and development of Genea’s pioneering science that led to first in Australia and internationally clinically accredited assays that revolutionised the clinical management approach in assisted reproductive medicine and pregnancy management.

Employment

  • Children's Cancer Institute Australia ZERO and MRD Clinical Operations Manager
    2021 - Present
  • Children's Cancer Institute Australia Senior Clinical Curation Scientist
    2017 - Present
  • Genea Senior Scientist
    2007 - 2017
  • Sydney IVF Research Assistant
    2003 - 2007
  • Novogen Cancer Research Assistant
    2001 - 2003
  • UNSW Laboratory Assistant
    2000 - 2001

Education

  • University of New South Wales - Randwick Campus Masters in Medical Science (Drug Development)
    2007 - 2009
  • University of New South Wales Bachelor of Science (Genetics)
    1997 - 2000

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (36)