@RhysTWhite

Scientist at @PHFScience | Turning #Genomics into intel | Tracking pathogen evolution, diversity, & spread | Welsh expat in New Zealand | Formerly @UQ_News

 Wellington, New Zealand
phfscience.nz/staff-profiles/rhys-white/
Joined July 2016
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📌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…

20 years later: unravelling the genomic success of New Zealand’s home-grown AK3 community-associa...

microbiologyresearch.org
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Same bacterium, new resistance. A drug-susceptible NICU outbreak. A successful MRSA lineage built step by step Three NZ examples of what chromosome-focused surveillance can miss when mobile DNA carries epidemiological signals doi.org/10.1071/MA26020 @AUSSOCMIC @CSIROPublishing

Mobile DNA as epidemiological engines: lessons from New Zealand

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the biggest global public health threats of the 21st Century, yet it often spreads in ways that routine surveillan

connectsci.au
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The practical bit: Track the lineage, but resolve the mobile DNA when the epidemiology depends on it. Broad surveillance + targeted structural resolution 🧬
Graphical summary of a Microbiology Australia paper on mobile DNA in bacterial genomic surveillance, including plasmids, transposons, and genomic islands.

ALT Graphical summary of a Microbiology Australia paper on mobile DNA in bacterial genomic surveillance, including plasmids, transposons, and genomic islands.

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Rhys White 🧬 retweeted
MicroSeq2026@Microseq_ASMAug 20
✨ #MicroSeq2026 Plenary Highlight! ✨ 🧵(1/4) Dr Rhys White’s fascinating research applies WGS to understand bacterial pathogen emergence, spread, and evolution - particularly as it relates to AMR in clinical and epidemiological spaces. Register 👉 trybooking.com/DNRBW
A portrait of Dr Rhys White decorated with cartoons of microbes. Dr Rhys White is based at the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science and will be speaking at the MicroSeq online conference.

ALT A portrait of Dr Rhys White decorated with cartoons of microbes. Dr Rhys White is based at the New Zealand Institute for Public Health and Forensic Science and will be speaking at the MicroSeq online conference.

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Coordinate-based excision from phylogenomic matrices is simple in principle, but editing errors can alter matrices. NEXCISION enables exact excision from transposed NEXUS matrices 📃: doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.26.… 🔗: github.com/RhysWhite/nexcisi… Feedback welcome #Bioinformatics
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Rhys White 🧬 retweeted
Dr Miranda Pitt@Miranda_E_PittJun 2
🚨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…

Decentralized nanopore genomics reveals diverse Klebsiella pneumoniae and no evidence of patient–...

microbiologyresearch.org
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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
Patrick Harris@padstamundoMar 5
Novel transposon Tn8026 acts as a global driver of transmissible linezolid resistance in Enterococcus via a linear plasmid medrxiv.org/content/10.64898…

Novel transposon Tn8026 acts as a global driver of transmissible linezolid resistance in Enteroco...

Linezolid is a critical last-resort antimicrobial for multidrug-resistant Enterococcus faecium , particularly against vancomycin-resistant lineages where therapeutic options are severely limited....

medrxiv.org
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Rhys White 🧬 retweeted
Peter Fineran@PeterFineranMar 4
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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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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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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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
Global Health NOW@globalhealthnowJan 13
Faster, cheaper technologies that can do onsite genome sequencing are improving pathogen surveillance in lower-income settings. globalhealthnow.org/2026-01/…

Frontline Genomics With AI: Nanopores, Lifesaving Diagnostics, and Squiggles

Faster, cheaper technologies that can do onsite genome sequencing are improving pathogen surveillance in lower-income settings.

globalhealthnow.org
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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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