Published finally! Our study describing the use of metagenomics for AMR/pathogen surveillance in food-centres island-wide in Singapore is out in npj Antimicrobial & Resistance:

nature.com/articles/s44...

Skin #metatranscriptomics could be transformational in a way not seen in gut/oral studies as
1) Defined spatial sampling can provide in vivo relevant insights
2) Microbial mRNA is dominant, but human mRNA is also readily detected and quantified
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our study developing a skin metatranscriptomics protocol is now out in @natbiotech.nature.com!

We finally have the ability to study microbial activity on skin and identify key functional genes playing a role in diseases.

Amazing team of Chia Minghao and Amanda Ng 👏

nature.com/articles/s41...

Skin metatranscriptomics reveals a landscape of variation in microbial activity and gene expression across the human body - @niranjantw.bsky.social @astar-gis.bsky.social go.nature.com/4fVg95j

Our work on direct @nanoporetech.com sequencing of non-canonical bases in now out in @natcomms.nature.com!

Read all about it here: nature.com/articles/s41...

Great collab with Chew and Hirao lab

x.com/NiranjanTW/s...

Find out how our researchers—Associate Director @niranjantw.bsky.social, GIS Innovation Fellow Chayaporn Suphavilai and Dr Karrie Ko—discovered a new variation of 𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘢 𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘴 (𝘊.𝘢𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘴)—𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗩𝗜—a drug-resistant yeast that kept infectious disease experts on high alert worldwide.
Full story below👇:

Studying low-biomass environments in microbiome research? The struggle is real when it comes to contamination! Even the tiniest sprinkle of external microbes can throw off your results, making traditional methods a no-go. Details in link below:
@niranjantw.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Thank you - bluesky feels like a mirror world :)

Which skin microbiome type do you have 🤔 Check out our exciting work from the Asian Skin Microbiome Program offering new insights of skin microbiome population heterogeneity👇 #skinmicrobiome #microbiomescience

5. Exciting days ahead as we try to decipher the contributions of diverse factors that shape skin microbiome dermotypes, and in turn their influence on skin health! @cherrychengchenli.bsky.social

4. Dermotypes exhibit distinct associations w/ host, where ethnicity and gender play a role in some cases, while others are linked to skincare behaviors. Skin sensitivity, itch and eczema may be affected by dermotype function, highlighting utility for patient stratification & therapeutics

3. Microbes behave very differently across dermotypes in terms of who they co-occur with! We can confirm this with culture-based experiments that show that oxygen gradients and nutrient availability likely shape why we see distinct dermotypes in various individuals.
@atVidu

2. Dermotypes are highly coordinated across sites. For some sites, we can predict the dermotype just by knowing dermotype of another site. Left and right sides of the body are also highly correlated, suggesting that individual intrinsic factors strongly shape the skin microbiome.

Many exciting results to follow-up on!
1. The skin microbiome has unique “types” in every site - we call them dermotypes. The underarm has as many as 5 distinct ones defined by diverse microbes. We built ML classifiers to predict them w/ near-perfect accuracy with 5 species!

Super thrilled to share our labor of love from the Asian Skin Microbiome Program! We collected >3,500 skin samples, built metagenomic libraries w/ >70 billion reads and >10TB of data to study heterogeneity of the skin microbiome in the general population (200 adults, 18 sites) t.co/ZylbJMpvpw

A bit late to joining the Bluesky party, but it's great to see all the amazing scientists who are on this platform! Looking forward to connecting with all of you here (on twitter as @niranjantw ... so keeping the handle consistent).