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Smallomics LP is an innovative laboratory focused in microbial diversity studies for the whole microbiome using molecular techniques (Next Generation Sequencing; NGS). The traditional way of determining the composition of microbial communities has been through culturing methods. These are based on the isolation and cultivation of microorganisms.

However, it has been shown that culturing is unreliable for the complete microbial diversity characterization of many ecosystems, including those of water, soil, foods and beverages. The isolation of microorganisms may require unknown growth factors and/or specific conditions that cannot be reproduced in vitro.

Moreover, microbes that exhibit low abundances in their natural habitat, might be outcompeted by other species during isolation and avoid detection. All these limitations cause microbial diversity underestimation by traditional techniques, while some times they might also miss major groups present in the natural habitats.

Research interests & main objectives

Smallomics focuses on

• Microbial diversity analysis using amplicon sequencing for Bacteria (16S), Fungi (18S, SSU, ITS1-4), Archaea (16s) and Algae, followed by the respevtive bionormatics analysis
• Metagenomes analysis
• Bioinformatics and biostatistics

Principal investigator

Andreas Kontos

Equipment and processes

 The laboratory of Smallomics is eqquiped with facilities for microbial diversity analysis (molecular biology lab).