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Austin Hammond brings diverse research experience to the Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) at the University of Saskatchewan (USask) — and he’s putting it all to use as the Platform Lead for GIFS’ Omics and Precision Analytics Laboratory (OPAL).

In his role, Hammond oversees one of the largest high-throughput sequencing facilities in Canada — a world-class laboratory that provides genomics, transcriptomics, and bioinformatics services to researchers in the agri-food sector and other fields of discovery.

Austin Hammond

“The really motivating factor was to be able to contribute to an area of research that had very direct impacts on people’s lives,” said Hammond, MSc, explaining his motivation for joining GIFS in 2022.

At GIFS, Hammond found an opportunity to contribute to a wide range of complex projects while leveraging an exciting complement of technology.

“We have the ability to really work at a huge scale of science,” said Hammond.

“The resources and technologies that we have and use here are really thrilling to be able to leverage and we can move the science that we do faster than any other time I’ve had an opportunity to do so in my career …

“It’s also sometimes a challenge, because the questions that you then need to answer with these strong technologies are that much larger.”

Experience Benefits Partners

Today, Hammond leads a team that collaborates with a variety of researchers and organizations across academia, government, and industry that are studying plants, animals, and microbes.

Utilizing a complete suite of long- and short-read sequencing technologies, Hammond’s team prepares, processes, and sequences samples for these collaborators to determine composition, individual variation, or gene expression.

The resulting data is supported by automated bioinformatics and visualizations pipelines delivered through GIFS’ Data Management and Analytics team that provide valuable, actionable insights to researchers.

It’s variety that Hammond is well prepared for.

While completing his graduate studies, Hammond gained experience in both molecular biology and transcriptomics. He explored endocrine signaling and led a project that sequenced the genome of the North American bullfrog.

Prior to joining GIFS, he also worked at Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre at BC Cancer and the Cancer Research Cluster at USask.

“While I was at the Genome Sciences Centre, one of the additional projects I worked on that gave me entrance to the plant space was working on a couple of conifer genomes,” said Hammond, noting the genomes he analyzed were more than six times the size of the human genome.

“That complex and difficult genome was a real challenge to work on, but also very rewarding when we got something that was useful for the community.

“That was only a glimpse into the complexity of plant genomes that I’ve since been exposed to very heavily here (at GIFS).”

Automation at Scale

Since joining GIFS, Hammond has helped to grow and enhance the technologies, services, and value that OPAL provides to researchers.

In 2023, GIFS became one of the first service providers in Canada to begin offering genomics analyses using PacBio’s Revio sequencing system. Today, GIFS’ laboratory is recognized as a PacBio Certified Service Provider, placing it amongst an elite group of core labs that provide researchers with access to specialized equipment and technical expertise.

“That endorsement from PacBio really signals to the community and the sector that they can trust us with their high-value samples — that they’ll be handled with the appropriate care and attention and that the data we generate is something that they can depend on,” said Hammond.

GIFS’ sequencing facility also features a growing number of automated tools, including liquid handlers, that help to scale research and development.

Under his leadership, Hammond’s team has developed custom protocols that leverage these automated tools to successfully work with thousands of samples at a time, capturing large quantities of data while maintaining the highest standards of quality.

“Using these automated systems, our technicians can perform the same operations, but at a much higher scale — often with a greater degree of consistency and reproducibility,” said Hammond.

“These scale multipliers can be anywhere from two to four to 10 times more in the same amount of time — and that is really critical for OPAL and GIFS to be able to provide the data and results that our partners need to make really time-sensitive decisions, especially at an affordable price.”

Collaboration Makes it Happen

As with all of GIFS’ activities, collaboration is fundamental to Hammond’s work — both in how his team serves their partners and how they work together to optimize new technologies and deliver results.

“I think some of the best days are ones where I get to celebrate with the team that we’ve got a really substantial accomplishment like a customer project that was processed through a new automated workflow that’s met every expectation …” said Hammond.

“That is extraordinarily satisfying and something that we celebrate together. That’s my favourite part, because it’s not something that any one person on the team does alone.”

GIFS’ Omics and Precision Analytics Laboratory is a premier platform for omics technology, providing world-class genomics, transcriptomics, and bioinformatics services to researchers and organizations across diverse sectors. For more on the services GIFS provides, see gifs.ca/partners and our Services & Solutions Guide (PDF).