Andre Mu is a Senior Lecturer and Laboratory Head with the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and is affiliated with the Biomedicine Discovery Institute's Infection Theme. 

As a microbial ecologist and bioinformatician, Andre has a particular interest in the mechanisms that underpin the role of commensal microorganisms in facilitating host health and disease.

He utilises a wide array of culture-dependent and -independent techniques, including multi-omics (metagenomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics), computational biology, and bacterial physiology assays (incl. molecular microbiology) to answer research questions relating to the human gut microbiome and infectious diseases.

Andre’s research to date informs gut microbiome engineering strategies towards translating observations from the bench to human-relevant therapeutic applications. For example, he applies integrative omic analyses (neural networking) to link metabolites with their likely microbial hosts in the context of infection with vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium. Further, Andre was a visiting Research Fellow at the University of California San Diego with Professor Rob Knight, where he led a project characterising the microbiome of a UCSD Health patient undergoing adjunctive bacteriophage therapy to treat a persistent staphylococcal device infection associated with bacteraemia. Results from Andre’s proof-of-principle study using shotgun metagenomics, genomics, and high-resolution untargeted metabolomics, supports the use of lytic bacteriophages as a microbiome-sparring approach to treat bacterial infections.

Andre initially trained in molecular microbiology at the University of Melbourne’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology. He successfully co-led the experimental phase of Bioplatforms Australia’s multi-million-dollar Antibiotic Resistant Pathogens Initiative. This project developed a reference dataset enabling the identification of core targets common to phylogenetically diverse bacterial species causing sepsis (Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumonia species complex, Staphylococcus aureus, and Streptococcus pyogenes) using high-throughput genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. This project involved working closely with Senior Researchers across 20 Australian Research Organisations, including colleagues from Monash University.

His graduate research at the University of Melbourne with Assoc. Prof., John Moreau was in environmental sciences elucidating the interactions of a 1.5-km deep subsurface microbial community using high-throughput sequencing technologies. During this time, Andre was awarded a competitive fellowship through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to train in anaerobic microbiology with Prof., Gerrit Voordouw at the University of Calgary.

Andre is also the recipient of competitive individual research fellowships spanning three continents and four world-leading research institutes, including:

• Endeavour Research Fellowship (Doherty Institute, Australia)
• NOMIS Foundation Research Fellowship (Salk Institute, USA)
• EMBL-EBI & Sanger Research Fellowship (Wellcome Sanger Institute and European Bioinformatics Institute, UK)