Researcher

Minghao Chia is a Fellow at the A*STAR Genome Institute of Singapore (A*STAR GIS) and A*STAR Bioinformatics Institute (A*STAR BII). His research focuses on elucidating human microbiome function using RNA-based technologies.

Chia has authored multiple peer-reviewed publications on microbiomes across diverse contexts, including the gut, paediatric atopic dermatitis and the absence of resident microbial communities in healthy blood. While most microbiome studies rely on DNA sequencing (metagenomics) to characterise microbial composition, abundance alone is insufficient to explain how microbes influence human health and disease. To address this gap, Chia’s team develops and applies RNA-based approaches to study the functional activity of bacterial and fungal communities in vivo.

Recent efforts include developing a workflow for skin metatranscriptomics to measure microbial adaptation pathways and identify novel antimicrobial proteins. The team is also customising spatial-omics technologies such as Visium (10X Genomics) and Stereoseq-OMNI (STOmics) for multiplexed detection of microbes and host cell types within intact tissues, relating spatial patterns to clinical outcomes.