UWA · Biocodecs group · ACRTC Feb 2027 – mid 2030

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Semantic contract typing and provenance for multi-omic workflow composition. Or: making pipelines say when they're wrong.

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Aim A — Type the tools

Contracts for every node

Each tool declares what it expects and what it produces. Connect two that disagree, say about which genome build they’re using, and the pipeline refuses to run instead of handing you a wrong answer.

Aim B — Prove it on real data

Tested in the lab

The system runs on real multi-omic data at the Biocodecs group, with a first-author biology paper on the way. The design keeps data inside its home institution — analysis goes to the data, not the other way round.

Aim C — Measure the difference

Count the silent errors

A pre-registered study with about 15 researchers compares three ways of building a pipeline: ad-hoc scripts, the typed graph, and an AI agent. The endpoint that matters: how often each one produces a plausible but wrong result.

Fig. 01 — The PhD Proposal v4, Aug 2026

The
project

contract typing provenance multi-omics MCP silent error rate

Bioinformatics pipelines fail silently. Every step runs fine, the logs are clean, and the final answer is still wrong, because two tools quietly disagreed about something, like which version of a genome they were given.

My PhD builds the layer that catches those mistakes: each tool in a workflow carries a machine-checkable contract, and the workflow records its own provenance as it runs, so a result can be traced back to every decision that produced it.

The system grows out of BioNodulo, the visual workflow platform I've been building since my masters. The PhD formalises what building it exposed.

TITLE Semantic contract typing and provenance for multi-omic workflow composition UWA
SUPERV. Dr Nikolay ShirokikhBiocodecs group, RNA Multi-Omics and Design Lab, ACRTC Primary
CO-SUP. Dr Alice Cleynen · Prof Archa FoxBiostatistics · RNA biology Proposed
DATES February 2027 – mid 2030 3.5 years
Fig. 02 — Published May 2026
Publication placeholder

Silencing the noise with gene body methylation

A Spotlight article in Trends in Genetics, May 2026 issue. Main author, with Joseph B.P. Lloyd. It covers gene body methylation, a mark found on the bodies of genes across plants, animals and more, whose job is still argued about, and the case that it keeps transcription honest.

Nieuwenhuyzen M, Lloyd JPB. Trends in Genetics 2026;42(6):484–485.

Read the paper

My masters dissertation worked on the same mark in Arabidopsis thaliana. Scored 80.33, degree with Distinction.

Fig. 03 — The calendar 2020 — 2030
2020Bachelor of Biomedicine, UWADouble major: Anatomy & Immunology. Global Excellence Scholarship.Perth
2024Master of Bioinformatics, UWADistinction. GPA 6.36/7. Dissertation on gene body methylation in Arabidopsis.Perth
2026Spotlight in Trends in GeneticsMain author. May 2026 issue.Published
2026Biocodecs group, ACRTCVolunteering in Dr Nikolay Shirokikh's lab while building BioNodulo.Now
2027PhD beginsSemantic contract typing and provenance for multi-omic workflow composition.February
2030PhD completeIf the pipelines cooperate. They will. That’s the point of the project.Mid-year
Projects BioNodulo & AI work ↗