The Daily Telescope – PR Health

18 November 2017 · Industry News

Stool Bank in Asia Welcomes New Scientist

By Brad Bennett – November 16, 2017

The Asia Microbiota Bank, the first stool bank in Hong Kong, expands the team by adding a new scientist to help lead research efforts on bacteria clusters unique to the Asian population. The scientific team uses next generation sequencing and strain level analysis to optimize Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) treatment outcomes in Asia. “We hope that the deep FMT data we are collecting from around Asia will help uncover key strains that influence intestinal health.”-Co-Founder, Jon Chan

New York, NY, November 16, 2017 — The Asia Microbiota Bank Welcomes New Scientific Team Member

The Asia Microbiota Bank (AMB), headquartered in Hong Kong, is pleased to announce they have been joined by a new scientific team member, Subramanya Rao, PhD. As an expert microbiologist and bioinformatician, Dr. Rao will lead the laboratory production and scientific research efforts to help drive forward greater understanding of gut microbiota in relation to health and disease.

“The Asia Microbiota Bank welcomes Dr. Rao to strengthen our scientific team and advance our understanding of the human microbiome as it relates to disease. His experience in microbial community analysis and bioinformatics will allow us to understand the gut microbiome at deeper levels. This could influence our understanding of gut balance and the important role microbiome plays in every area of our human body.” –Mr. Jon Chang, Co-founder, Asia Microbiota Bank

Dr. Rao has extensive work on ecological microbiomes. He worked on identifying biomarkers in the microbiomes of cancer patients compared to healthy human microbiomes as a researcher at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He has conducted a variety of research on diverse microbial ecologies, including niche-specificity of enteric E. coli strains, biodiversity of extreme weather centers, and bio-informatics pipelines for OMICS-based techniques. He is an important contributor to the Earth Microbiome Project, a global study which recently published its findings in Nature. Dr. Rao has participated in trainings and research excursions in USA, Singapore, Hong Kong, Antarctic, Oman, India and Thailand.

“As a passionate microbiologist with over a decade of experience on decoding microbes in different settings such as soil, water, air and humans, I look forward to applying my knowledge of microbiology in the context of human gut microbiome health. There is a lack of data on the gut microbiome across Asian populations. AMB will gather more data to understand how to improve human health through the microbiome.” –Dr. Subramanya Rao, PhD.

Under Dr. Rao’s leading, AMB will release a health report in December 2017, outlining the microbial diversity of a group of donors which represent AMB’s efforts to establish parameters of health. The individuals who participated in this research are among the top one percent of Hong Kong’s most healthy citizens. With the HMT products these healthy donors contributed, AMB has already begun preliminary patient treatments with positive outcomes.

For media inquiry or interview scheduling please email media@asiabiobank.com, or call +852-3705-3599

Contact: Marie Zimmerman
Phone: +852-3705 3599
Email: Media@asiabiobank.com