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Lara's Research

I am interested in how genomic research can benefit and be incorporated into the conservation of nature. I believe that we can leverage genomics and revolutionary approaches such as portable DNA sequencing to revolutionize our understanding of planetary health, with important implications for biodiversity conservation, non-invasive biomonitoring, biosecurity, public health and, in general, for democratizing science.

 

During my PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK, and the EMBL - European Bioinformatics Institute, I applied and developed methodology in the fields of statistical genomics, deep learning and single-cell genetics. I am now combining this expertise in genomics with my background in both applied and theoretical ecology to investigate how these approaches can be combined with established applications from population and evolutionary genomics to inform the fledgling field of conservation genomics.

 

As a Research Fellow, I then focused on two critically endangered avian species endemic to New Zealand, the takahē and the kākāpō. I further benchmark portable DNA sequencing and different environmental DNA approaches to obtain information about species presence and population structure.

As a Principal Investigator at the Helmholtz Pioneer Campus and the Helmholtz AI institute, I would like to invite any interested researcher to be in touch and discuss common interests and potential collaborations.

See                                                                            for more details. 

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Recent highlights

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Lara accepts offer from Helmholtz Munich & HPC

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Portable sequencing to safeguard kākāpō

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Lara receives NZ$ 30k for more

portable sequencing research 

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Haplotype-resolved

genome assembly

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President's Symposium on

Conservation Genomics

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Early-Career Advisory

Group for research reform

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Kākāpō eDNA and 

adaptive sampling

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Kākāpō conservation

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Nanopore sequencing collaboration published

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European Reference

Genome Atlas consortium

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Featuring our

Nature papers! 

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Using nanopore sequencing

to monitor the River Cam

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Freshwater monitoring using nanopore sequencing

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Takahē conservation

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Tuatara mitochondrial

genomes

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Funding for kākāpō

eDNA project

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Funding for takahē

genomics project

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Discussing global

biodiversity loss

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Assessing marine

biodiversity

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My PhD research on

cancer genomics

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