Prof Stephan Schuster

Deputy Centre Director (Facilities & Capacities)
Research Director, Meta-o’mics & Microbiomes cluster
Professor, School of Biological Sciences, NTU
President’s Chair in Genomics, NTU
Scientific Director, GenomeAsia 100K

Email: scschuster@ntu.edu.sg

Research in Prof Schuster’s Laboratory aims at charting the genetic structures of species at the genomic level, but also to map temporal and spatial patterns of organismal communities in the environment. Prof. Schuster has been a pioneer for next-generation sequencing and computational techniques. He has established new and robust methods for identifying microbial organisms from a wide variety of environments, but also for identifying genetic differences in various populations of higher organisms. By developing novel protocols for ultra-low biomass analysis, Prof. Schuster’s laboratory recently advanced the field of bioaerosols. This novel technological platform allows conducting environmental surveillance studies that support ecological and public health aspects of outdoor and indoor environments.

Prof Schuster’s Air Microbiome team is using next-generation metagenomic sequencing to investigate the microbial composition of air and the spatial and temporal variation of airborne microbial communities. Areas of expertise include establishment of an ultra-low biomass sampling and analytical pipeline for metagenomic analysis, e.g., air and surface samples. This capacity enables research involving:

• Microbial community dynamics in air ecosystems across temporal and spatial scales, in different geographic zones, e.g., tropical, temperate regions, and settings, e.g., indoor/outdoor, urban/natural. These are considered in light of climate change and the potential impacts of a changing air microbiome.
• Environmental surveillance of potential pathogens, e.g., SARS-CoV-2 to inform on public health strategies;
• Respiratory health, investigating the relationship between the air and respiratory illness; and
• Characterisation of airborne microorganisms isolated from the air, to strengthen reference databases based on metagenomic taxa identification.

Prof Schuster is the scientific director of GenomeAsia 100K, mission driven non-profit consortium collaborating to sequence and analyse 100,000 Asian individuals genomes to help accelerate Asian population specific medical advances and precision medicine.