Rhys White 🧬

📌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…

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

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

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…

Novel transposon Tn8026 acts as a global driver of transmissible linezolid resistance in Enterococcus via a linear plasmid medrxiv.org/content/10.648…

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.

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

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

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

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… #AMR #FutureOfHealth #Surveillance #GlobalHealthThreats

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

🧵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… #ScienceTwitter

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

Measles in #NZ Check locations & what to do👉info.health.nz/conditions-tre… Symptoms or exposure? ☎️Call Healthline 0800 611 116 Not immune? Get MMR (2 doses, 1 month apart) Book👉app.bookmyvaccine.health.nz #Measles #MMR #VaccinesWork #Aotearoa #PublicHealth