Scientist at @PHFScience | Turning #Genomics into intel | Tracking pathogen evolution, diversity, & spread | Welsh expat in New Zealand | Formerly @UQ_News
Joined July 2016
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12 Aug 2025
📌20 years later: unravelling the genomic success of New Zealand’s home-grown AK3 community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus
How NZ’s #antibiotic habits fuelled a superbug
Once local, now global
Out now & #OpenAccess | @MicrobioSoc
doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.00145…
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Rhys White 🧬 retweeted
🚨Thrilled to share our recent preprint: "Interrogating the Escherichia coli epitranscriptome via CRISPR interference and Nanopore native RNA sequencing" 🦠biorxiv.org/content/10.64898…
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Hospital infections are sometimes assumed to spread between patients
But what if they’re not?
📌Decentralized nanopore genomics reveals diverse Klebsiella pneumoniae and no evidence of patient–patient transmission in a New Zealand hospital @MicrobioSoc
doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.00170…
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We embedded @nanopore sequencing directly into a frontline diagnostic lab.
We sequenced routine Klebsiella pneumoniae isolates collected at Wellington Regional Hospital.
Surprisingly, most infections were genomically unrelated with no evidence of patient-to-patient transmission
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This work was possible through collaboration across Aotearoa. From diagnostic labs & surveillance programmes to genomics, AMR & science teams at @PHFScience, alongside international collaborators.
Shout out to Alexander Sundermann (@PittTweet) for linking NZ & USA collaborators
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Rhys White 🧬 retweeted
Novel transposon Tn8026 acts as a global driver of transmissible linezolid resistance in Enterococcus via a linear plasmid
medrxiv.org/content/10.64898…
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Rhys White 🧬 retweeted
New post-doctoral research position available in my Phage-host interactions (Phi) laboratory at the @otago in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. The project is focused on defences against jumbo phages. Please share and if interested apply using the link below.
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Jan 22
It’s 2026.
If you submit a #Genomics paper without making the underlying sequence data publicly available, reproducibility is...
👉I M P O S S I B L E👈
#OpenScience data isn’t optional. It’s foundational to #PublicHealth, benchmarking, & scientific credibility
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Jan 22
Reviewers can’t assess data quality, mixtures, coverage, or assembly robustness without access to the sequence data.
Peer review without data isn’t #PeerReview.
Journals should enforce data availability before review, not after.
#OpenScience #Genomics
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Jan 14
From a neonatal ICU in Wellington to clinics in Africa & Europe: a new @ghn_news feature shows how onsite @nanopore genome sequencing is reshaping #InfectionPrevention… helping to deliver answers in hours, not weeks, & turning #Genomic into real-world action
#PublicHealth
Jan 13
Faster, cheaper technologies that can do onsite genome sequencing are improving pathogen surveillance in lower-income settings. globalhealthnow.org/2026-01/…
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🧵BIG PROBLEMS can hide in small #Plasmids
📌Integration of blaOXA-48 into a Col156 plasmid drove a carbapenem-resistant Escherichia coli ST131 outbreak in New Zealand: Global genomic evidence for the gene’s multilayered dissemination
doi.org/10.1016/j.drup.2025.…
#ScienceTwitter
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What didn’t work (at first)
Standard bacterial whole-genome sequencing told us about related cases, but not how the resistance was moving
It took complete genomes to see that this plasmid is global, stable, & quietly successful
#ScientificProcess #Genomics #AMR #LessonsLearned
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The uncomfortable question this paper leaves open...
👉 How many other high-risk #AntimicrobialResistance genes are carried on tiny plasmids we’re not even watching for yet?
doi.org/10.1016/j.drup.2025.…
#AMR #FutureOfHealth #Surveillance #GlobalHealthThreats
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11 Nov 2025
Genomics isn’t just solving #Outbreaks, it’s stopping them before they escalate
HOT take from @NatureRevMicro... If you only sequence #MDR outbreaks, you’re already late. Sequence the suspects: susceptible strains & #Plasmids
#GenomicSurveillance #InfectionControl #Microbiology
10 Nov 2025
New online! Genome sequencing for prevention of health-care-associated bacterial infections nature.com/articles/s41579-0…
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