SINGAPORE - Meet six scientists in Singapore who have pivoted away from their areas of expertise to Covid-19 related work.

Prof Stephan Schuster: Analysing air and surface samples to find virus traces

PHOTO: NTU SINGAPORE

Professor Stephan Schuster is an environmental detective. Like his crime-solving counterparts, the professor at the Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) School of Biological Sciences looks for what is unseen to the naked eye.

This has come in useful during the Covid-19 pandemic, as humanity battles an invisible foe.

His work involves taking samples from the air and surfaces, and analysing them to find traces of genetic material of organisms like viruses. Both environments are ultra-low biomass environments, meaning each sample might have only a few micrograms of genetic material, said Prof Schuster, who is also deputy centre director for facilities and capacities at NTU's Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering.

"Nevertheless, the (genetic material) recovered from these samples is very complex, as they originate from many different microbial organisms," he said.

Prof Schuster and his colleagues got cracking. They found in a study pending publication that air pollution could result in negative outcomes for respiratory illnesses, including those with Covid-19.