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 Material Measurement Laboratory /Biosystems and Biomaterials Division
      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.

      
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TwitterThe 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 combatting 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:

Fecal RM
	Horizontal Gene Transfer
	Measurement Bias Characterization (*coming soon*)
	Multi’omics (*coming soon*)
	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:

Rapid Microbial Testing Methods
	Microbial Pathogen Genomic DNA Standards RM8376
	Mpox Pandemic Surveillance Standards
	Recreational Water Quality Testing qPCR Standards SRM2917
	Wastewater Surveillance
	Antimicrobial Resistance
	Interlaboratory Studies (*coming soon*)

  

  Postdoctoral Research Opportunities
      
                  NRC Post-doctoral Research Fellowship Opportunities for the Complex Microbial Systems GroupWe encourage recent PhDs to join our team through postdoctoral fellowships with the National Research Council (NRC) Research Associateship...

    
  Selected Publications
      
                          Performing Skin Microbiome Research: A Method to the Madness
                        March 1, 2027
                  Author(s)
                                Heidi H. Kong,   Bj?rn  Andersson,   Thomas  Clavel,   John E. Common,   Scott  Jackson,   Nathanael David  Olson,   Julia  Segre,   Claudia  Traidl-HoffmanGrowing interest in microbial contributions to human health and disease has increasingly led investigators to examine the microbiome in both healthy skin and
  Report from the 2022 NIST Rapid Microbial Testing Methods (RMTM) Workshop
                        August 15, 2023
                  Author(s)
                                Stephanie  Servetas,   Nancy  Lin,   Nadratun  Chowdhury,   Scott  Jackson,   Jason  Kralj,   Sheng  Lin-Gibson,   Melody  Sanders,   Tara  EskandariSafety and quality of advanced therapies, including cellular, gene, and tissue-engineered medical products, is paramount for success of these products
  Enhancing untargeted metabolomics using metadata-based source annotation
                        July 7, 2022
                  Author(s)
                                Scott  Jackson,   Paulina  Piotrowski,   Nancy  Lin,   Sandra M.  Da Silva,   Katrice  Lippa,   Christina  Jones,   Stephanie  Servetas,   Julia  Gauglitz,   Kiana  West,   Wout  Bittremieux,   Candace  Williams,   Kelly  Weldon,   Morgan  Panitchpakdi,   Francesca  Ottavio,   Christine  Aceves,   Elizabeth  Brown,   Nicole  Sikora,   Alan  Jarmusch,   Cameron  Martino,   Pieter  Dorrestein,   Rob  Knight,   Rachel  Dutton,   Austin  Swafford,   Monica  Guma,   Norberto  Peporine Lopes,   Brigid  Boland,   Michelli  Oliveira,   Mark  Manary,   Maria Gloria  Dominguez-Bello,   Kenneth  Wright,   Julia  Beauchamp-Walters,   Kyung  Rhee,   Jae  Kim,   Megan  Doty,   Robert  Terkeltaub,   David  Gonzalez,   Curt  Wittenberg,   Tatyana  Kalashnikova,   Parambir  Dulai,   Douglas  Galasko,   Rima  Kaddurah Daouk,   Robert  Mills,   Paulo  Louzada-Junior,   Rene Donizeti  Ribeiro Oliveira,   Thaigo  Mattar Cunha,   Flavio  Protaso Veras,   Rodrigo  Moreira Silva,   Juliano  Geraldo Amaral,   Lucas Maciel  Mauriz Marques,   Barry  Bradford,   Lourdes  Herrera,   Gail  Ackermann,   Dana  Withrow,   Daniela  Vargas Robles,   Kate  Sprecher,   Clarisse  Marotz,   Mingxun  Wang,   Emmanuel  Elijah,   Dominic  Nguyen,   Qiyun  Zhu,   Daniel  McDonald,   Edgar  Diaz,   Pedro  Belda-Ferre,   Katharina  Spengler,   Abigail  Johnson,   Gregory  Humphrey,   MacKenzie  Bryant,   Tara  Schwartz,   Lindsay  Goldasich,   Fernando  Vargas,   Roxana  Coras,   Justin  Schaffer,   Erfan  Sayyari,   Kathleen  Dorrestein,   Michael  Meehan,   Anupriya  TripathiHuman untargeted metabolomics studies annotate only 10% of molecular features. We introduce reference-data-driven analysis to match metabolomics tandem mass
  Reference Material 8376 Microbial Pathogen DNA Standards for Detection and Identification
                        June 1, 2022
                  Author(s)
                                Jason  Kralj,   Dieter  Tourlousse,   Monique  Hunter,   Erica  Romsos,   Blaza  Toman,   Peter  Vallone,   Scott  JacksonReference Material (RM) 8376 is intended for NGS-based measurements quantitative to the chromosome. A unit of RM 8376 consists of 20 components (A-T, 19
  Impact of disaster research on the development of early career researchers: Lessons learned from the wastewater monitoring community pandemic response
                        April 7, 2022
                  Author(s)
                                Jeseth  Delgado Vela,   Jill  McClary-Gutierrez,   Mitham  Al-faliti,   Peter  Arts,   Robert  Barbero,   Cristalyne  Bell,   Mira  Chaplin,   Nishita  D'Souza,   Janet  Baffoe,   Kevin  Bakker,   Devrim  Kaya,   Raul  Gonzalez,   Kate  Harrison,   Sherin  Kannoly,   Ishi  Keenum,   Lin  Li,   Zachary  Marsh,   Brian  Pecson,   Sarah  Philo,   Hema P.  Ravindran,   Jatuwat  Sangsanont,   Rebecca  Schneider,   Melissa  Schussman,   Emily  Segelhurst,   Abhilasha  Shrestha,   Lauren  Stadler,   Allan  Vajra,   Krista R.  Wigginton,   Alexandria  Boehm,   Rolf  Halden,   Kyle  Bibby

    

  
  

      View All Publications

    
  Awards
      
                          2021 - Gold Medal Award---Peter Vallone, Megan Cleveland, William Valiant, Erica Romsos, Carolyn Steffen, Nathanael Olson, Stephanie Servetas, Hariharan IyerFor rapid development of NIST’s first RNA research-grade test material for detection and diagnostic measurements of COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA.

    

  
  

      View All Awards

        
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                Stakeholder Engagement
  Consortia

International Microbiome and Multi'omics Standards Alliance

Joint Agency Microbiome Alliance

Rapid Microbial Testing Methods

Workshops

IMMSA 2022 Workshop (Boulder, CO)

2021 Standards to Support an Enduring Capability in Wastewater Surveillance for Public Health

2020 Measuring SARS-CoV-2 in Wastewater and Fecal Material: A Call for Standards

2019 NIST Workshop on  Standards for Microbiome Measurements

2017 Standards for Pathogen Detection for Biosurveillance and Clinical Applications

2016 Standards for Microbiome Measurements Workshop

NIST-FDA Workshop Agenda & Report
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                News
  Scott Jackson's Living in a Microbial World
	NIST Spotlight: Going With the Gut for the Future of Health
	NIST Analysis Discovers Sample Processing Bias in Metagenomic Wastewater Surveillance
	NIST Develops Genetic Material for Validating Mpox Tests
	NIST Collaborates With EPA to Develop a Standard to Improve Fecal Pollution Measurements in Recreational Waters
	Taking Measure Blog Post: Say Hello to Our Little Friends: Toward Microbial BiotheraPOOtics and Diagnostics
  
    Contacts
      
        

Group Leader
        Scott Jackson
    
      
  scott.jackson@nist.gov
  (301) 975-5460

  

Office Manager
        Kristy Reyes
    
      
  kristy.davis@nist.gov
  (301) 975-5317

  

Staff
        Nadratun Chowdhury
    
      
  nadratun.chowdhury@nist.gov

  Jennifer Dootz
    
      
  jennifer.dootz@nist.gov
  (301) 975-0674

  Samuel P. Forry
    
      
  samuel.forry@nist.gov
  (301) 975-5246

  Monique Hunter
    
      
  monique.hunter@nist.gov
  (301) 975-5176

  Ishi Keenum
    
      
  ishi.keenum@nist.gov

  Jason Kralj
    
      
  jason.kralj@nist.gov
  (301) 975-4130

  Lisa Stabryla
    
      
  lisa.stabryla@nist.gov

  Stephanie Servetas
    
      
  stephanie.servetas@nist.gov
  (301) 975-0673

  

Associates
        Heidi Leonard
    
      
  heidi.leonard@nist.gov
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