At-home, self-sampling of the skin microbiome: development of an unsupervised sampling approach.

ABSTRACT: Large-scale skin microbiome studies are often restricted due to the need for participants to visit a research centre to have their skin swabbed by a trained individual. If samples taken by participants at home returned high-quality data, similar to that generated from samples taken by trained experts under controlled conditions, it would provide the potential for studies to have larger cohorts, include participants from multiple locations and facilitate longitudinal sample collection. Here, we describe the development of a novel unsupervised skin microbiome sample collection method and compare the data quality with that of supervised, in-lab sample collection. We enrolled 57 participants to collect skin swabs from their axillae, forearms, cheeks and scalps. Initially, samples were collecte

SUBMITTER: Leng J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12451302 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature