Linking microbiome to eco-industrial function: the in silico and metagenomic exploration of microbial dark matter and taxonomic blind spots

“A large majority of microbes cannot be cultured. Recently, microbiome sequencing has begun to identify the genetic potential of these lineages, often referred to as microbial dark matter. By integrating my taxonomic profiling methods with function profiling developed by the academic supervisor, I aim to develop and apply a comprehensive pipeline for microbial dark matter characterization, placing unclassified taxa into both a taxonomic and functional context. This data intensive approach will characterize novel gene families, pathways, and taxa at an unprecedented scale.Poorly characterized data can severely blunt microbiome analysis, limiting its scientific and industrial utility. My role at Metagenom Bio will be to analyze client microbiome and metagenomic data for specific industrial applications. Development of taxonomic and metagenomic functional profiling methods that incorporate microbial dark matter leverage custom computational techniques, and will enable high-resolution characterization of proprietary Metagenom Bio metagenomic libraries, substantially increasing their value.”

Faculty Supervisor:

Andrew Doxey

Student:

Michael Lynch

Partner:

Metagenom Bio Inc.

Discipline:

Biology

Sector:

Environmental industry

University:

University of Waterloo