​ASE students at ISME symposium

​Well done Winona Wijay and Zi Shan Kow, ASE students in their 4th and 3rd year of the Environmental Earth Sciences Program, who have had research posters accepted at the International Symposium on Microbial Ecology (ISME). ISME is the front runner conference in the field of microbial ecology, with an average of around 1,750 international scientists attending. It takes place this week (12 - 17 August 2018) and the students, along with staff from ASE, will be attending on site, in Leipzig, Germany.

Winona Wijay has studied the microbial communities off the coast of Singapore. In her study, entitled “The Monsoon Season Affects the Microbial Community Structure of Singapore Coastal Waters”, she showed that the composition of marine microbial species varied with the monsoon season, particularly in the Singapore strait, while the Johor Strait is more affected by runoff water. She also found that the Singapore Strait had a more diverse microbial community compared to the Johor Strait, and points out that higher diversity could mean a more stable microbial community with better resilience.

Zi Shan Kow did a genetic study of a bacterium found in tropical coastal water, entitled “Genomic insights into the piezotolerant properties of Photobacterium leiognathistrain A-1 isolated from tropical coastal waters”. She used genome sequencing and a pressure chamber to study a piezotolerant bacterium. Piezotolerant organisms have evolved to thrive a high pressure, such as in the deep sea.