Reference Materials

The mission of this working group is to be a forum for discussing and developing reference material standards for microbial researchers.

The goals of the group include:

  • Collating and disseminating information about existing reference material standards;

  • Advocating for the reporting of data from reference material standards; and

  • Advancing their availability and usefulness


We interpret "reference material standards" as any physical material that can be used for quality control, validation, diagnostics, and standardization in metagenomic, microbiome, or multi-omics workflows. The group represents stakeholders in clinical, academic, industry, and government settings.


Panel Discussion Thursday January 27, 2021

History, challenges, and opportunities in the use of microbial reference materials.

recording available for IMMSA members

Panel Members

  • Moderator: Dr. Katrine Whiteson, Associate Professor, Department of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry at UC Irvine and Co-Director, UCI Microbiome Initiative

  • Dr. Jacques Ravel, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Microbiome and Associate Director, Institute For Genome Sciences @ University of Maryland School of Medicine

  • Dr. Chrysi Sergaki, Scientist at NIBSC leading the development of the first WHO Whole Cell Reference Reagents for the microbiome

  • Ryan Sasada, Product Manager at Zymo Research focused on microbial reference materials

  • Dr. Steve Miller, Professor and Director, UCSF Clinical Microbiology Laboratory

Interested in Joining this Working Group? Click "sign-up" below