Keio University Human Biology-Microbiome-Quantum Research Center (WPI-Bio2Q) held a seminar as follows.

14:00 -15:00 August 4, 2025

Venue:  1F JKiC, Shinanomachi Campus, Keio University

Speaker：
Shinichi Sunagawa, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Biology
Head of Institute of Microbiology
ETH Zürich, Switzerland

Title: “Discovering new microbial taxa, enzymes and surface structural variability by (meta)genomics”

Microbes are phylogenetically, metabolically and structurally diverse. Exploring this diversity has been greatly accelerated by DNA sequencing of microbial communities (metagenomics) and cultivated strains. In my seminar, I will first discuss the discovery potential of metagenomics for novel microbial taxa, enzymes and biosynthetic products in the ocean. Reconstructing microbial community genomes at global scale facilitated the discovery of a new bacterial family with an unparalleled biosynthetic diversity and the characterization of a novel enzyme with unexpected biochemistry. Then, I will show how comparative genomics revealed the extend of surface structural diversity that has remained underexplored even in E. coli. Together, these examples demonstrate the value of environmental and comparative genomics to uncover phylogenetic, metabolic and structural novelty, with implications for biotechnological and biomedical applications.