Dr Chrysi Sergaki

Dr Chrysi Sergaki is a scientist in the Microbiome section at the NIBSC. Chrysi is interested in microbial interactions and how to utilise them for the benefit of human health. At the NIBSC she is leading projects investigating the role of the microbiome in gut health and disease. Furthermore, she is leading the development of the first World Health Organization Whole Cell Reference Reagents for the microbiome, which aims to set light to the bias introduced by the DNA extraction process in microbiome research.

Before joining the NIBSC in 2019, Chrysi completed her PhD at University of Warwick, researching microbial interactions, for both fungi and bacteria, and their impact on plant health and performance, combining laboratory and bioinformatics approaches. She coordinated a collaboration with leading scientist of the plant microbiome field from Max Plank Institute in Cologne, Germany and gained deeper, hands-on experience on microbiome through a 2-week EMBO practical course. Chrysi applies her experience on molecular techniques, working with synthetic microbial communities, bipartite interactions and bioinformatics in her developing standards for the field and new approaches in studying the human microbiome at the NIBSC. 

Chrysi is very keen on the advancements in the microbiome field and keeping up to date with latest research. If you are interested in microbiome research and its impact, or/and the standardisation of the field, Chrysi would be very interested in hearing from you.