ESR Project 8
Zhile Xiong
Zhile Xiong is an Early-Stage Researcher working at the Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Biofilmcenter, department of Microbiology, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Annette Moter and Dr. Judith Kikhney. Before starting he PhD, He obtained his MSc in Clinical Medical Laboratory at the Guangzhou medical university, China during 2018-2021.
He projects focus on perform molecular microscopic studies to understand the role of microbial and microbiota communities in a spatial context. He will develop to assess the analytical gain of the novel molecular imaging technique MG-FISH (microbiome-guided fluorescence in situ hybridization) for the analysis of microbial communities.
Communities of microorganisms for example in the gastro-intestinal tract are closely connected to stages of health and disease in humans and animal models. It has only lately become apparent that not only the composition of the microbial communities is relevant but also their spatial organisation. Key microbial species are directly associated with the host epithelial surfaces or even invasive within the host tissue. MG-FISH synergistically combines FISH with Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), so that microorganisms (bacteria and fungi) can both be identified and localized.
