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Complex Microbial Systems Group

Microbes play a critical role in health, agriculture, public safety, alternative energy, manufacturing and the environment. These applications demand reliability of identification, discrimination, and quantification of microbes at a level of speed and accuracy that is unprecedented.

The Complex Microbial Systems Group develops advanced measurements and standards for exploitation of microbes to promote human health, precision medicine, advanced manufacturing and other industrial applications. The group uses genomic and metagenomic approaches to improve measurements on microbiomes, and is developing reference materials for assessing the sensitivity and specificity of pathogen detection devices.  Advanced methods including microfluidics, predictive modeling of engineered microbes, bioinformatics and state-of-the-art imaging are being applied to critical areas such as combating antibiotic resistance, food safety, clinical diagnostics, and engineering biology.

Programs

Microbiome

Microbes have essential roles in nearly every ecological niche on Earth, including the human body. The NIST Microbiome Program supports the rapidly growing industries that are developing microbial-based solutions to treat disease, improve human and environmental health, enhance agricultural productivity and food safety, bioremediate waste, produce new biofuels, and avert infrastructure corrosion. Our efforts include:

  1. Fecal RM
  2. Horizontal Gene Transfer
  3. Measurement Bias Characterization (coming soon)
  4. Multi’omics (coming soon)
  5. Probiotic/bugs as drugs (coming soon)

Pathogen Detection and Biosurveillance

In collaboration with partners and stakeholders, NIST develops standards, methods, and measurement solutions to support the advancement of clinical diagnostics, biothreat detection, recreational water quality monitoring, biomanufacturing quality control, wastewater surveillance, and spread of antimicrobial resistance. Specific projects include:

  1. Rapid Microbial Testing Methods
  2. Microbial Pathogen Genomic DNA Standards RM8376
  3. Mpox Pandemic Surveillance Standards
  4. Recreational Water Quality Testing qPCR Standards SRM2917
  5. Wastewater Surveillance
  6. Antimicrobial Resistance
  7. Interlaboratory Studies (coming soon)

Postdoctoral Research Opportunities

Selected Publications

NIST 2024 Rapid Microbial Testing Methods Workshop Report

Author(s)
Jason Kralj, Nancy Lin, Kirsten Parratt, Stephanie Servetas, Dawn Henke, Scott Jackson
The NIST-led Rapid Microbial Testing Methods (RMTM) Consortium launched in 2020 to develop standards and measurement-based solutions to advance the use of RMTMs

Inter-tool analysis of a NIST dataset for assessing baseline nucleic acid sequence screening

Author(s)
Tyler Laird, Kevin Flyangolts, Craig Bartling, Bryan Gemler, Jacob Beal, Tom Mitchell, Steven T. Murphy, Jens Berlips, Leonard Foner, Ryan Doughty, Felix Qunitana, Michael Nute, Todd J. Treangen, Gene D. Godbold, Krista Ternus, Tessa Alexanian, Nicole Wheeler, Samuel Forry
Nucleic acid synthesis is a dual-use technology that can benefit fields such as biology, medicine, and information storage. However, synthetic nucleic acids

Report from the 2022 NIST Rapid Microbial Testing Methods (RMTM) Workshop

Author(s)
Stephanie Servetas, Nancy Lin, Nadratun Chowdhury, Scott Jackson, Jason Kralj, Sheng Lin-Gibson, Melody Sanders, Tara Eskandari
Safety and quality of advanced therapies, including cellular, gene, and tissue-engineered medical products, is paramount for success of these products

Awards

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