Skin Microbiome Testing

The skin microbiome is critical in maintaining skin health and addressing conditions such as acne, eczema, and psoriasis. At Cmbio, we offer solutions to help you explore the complex microbial and molecular interactions that influence skin health, aging, and wound healing. Whether you're developing skincare products or investigating the role of the microbiome in dermatological conditions, our expertise provides the insights you need to drive innovation in skin care.

Skin Health and Personal Care

Comprehensive Skin Microbiome Testing Services

Skin microbiome and metabolomics research require special attention since skin samples are typically low-biomass and high-host, resulting in relatively few bacterial reads. With extensive experience in handling these challenging sample types, we offer a range of tailored solutions to ensure accurate and insightful results.

1. Sample Collection

A skin swab or tape-strip is gently applied to your skin to collect microbes and bacteria living on the surface, ensuring the preservation of DNA from all associated organisms and the healthy skin environment. Each sample is expertly preserved to prevent contamination or changes in microbial content before analysis.

2. DNA Extraction

Collected samples undergo a specialised process to extract microbial DNA while minimizing interference from host (human) DNA. This critical step ensures that even low-biomass samples reliably reflect the unique community of bacteria present on your skin.

3. Library Preparation and Sequencing

The DNA is then prepared using either long-read 16S amplicon sequencing or shotgun sequencing, offering both taxonomic and functional community profiling. This technology enables us to identify the microbes present, including highly specific strain-level differences, using the latest science and methods.

4. Data Analysis and Interpretation

Our skilled team analyses sequencing data using advanced bioinformatics pipelines and machine learning tools. This allows us to link microbial patterns and key metabolites with skin health, aging, and targeted interventions—delivering clear, customised insights in a concise time frame.

5. Results

The final, easy-to-understand report empowers you with a holistic view of the skin microbiome, highlighting key findings and science-based insights to support your product development.

Long-read 16S sequencing

Provides comprehensive taxonomic profiling of microbial communities, even in samples with limited bacterial content. Our marker gene analysis pipeline provides an affordable and rapid way of analyzing the skin microbiome.

Shotgun Sequencing

Delivers both taxonomic and functional composition data. Our proprietary CHAMP profiler is the most accurate and sensitive human microbiome profiler on the market, making it particularly effective for skin samples with low amounts of bacterial reads, ensuring robust detection of microbial taxa and functions.

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Metabolomics

We offer broad untargeted panels, as well as specialized panels for lipidomics, amino acids, and short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), providing insights into how these metabolites influence skin health, aging, and conditions like eczema and acne.

Skin Age Predictor

Assess the impact of treatments or interventions on skin health by applying our machine learning-based skin age predictor, which provides insights into how the microbiome and metabolites contribute to skin aging.

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Strain-level Resolution

Going beyond species-level identification is critical for skin microbiomes due to the different phenotypes seen at the strain level (e.g., C. acnes and Staphylococcus strains). We provide strain-level profiling through SLST for amplicon sequencing (C. acnes) or SNV-based clonal-level profiling via shotgun sequencing.

Woman applying skincare cream under her eyes

Understanding the Connections

Our team of bioinformaticians, microbiologists, and statisticians helps you explore the links between the skin microbiome, metabolites, and skin health conditions. Whether you’re studying wound healing or the effects of skincare products, we can help you interpret the data to drive discoveries and product innovations.

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Why Choose Cmbio Skin Microbiome Testing Services?

Cmbio stands apart through a unique combination of advanced science, proven technology, and a highly personalised approach tailored for real-world skin health and innovation. Here’s why leading brands, researchers, and dermatologists trust our services:

Highest accuracy: Our proprietary profiling tools, including long-read 16S sequencing and sensitive shotgun metagenomics, deliver industry-leading resolution, even for low-biomass or high-host samples.

One-to-one insights: Cmbio’s approach links bacteria, metabolites, and host factors, providing the holistic understanding that’s key to healthy and youthful skin.

Strain-level detail: Highly advanced, strain-level profiling lets you distinguish among microbes with different impacts, essential for developing targeted skincare strategies and understanding condition-specific phenotypes.

Cutting-edge science: By using leading-edge DNA and metabolomic testing platforms, our process unlocks actionable data that isn’t available through basic microbial testing.

Custom recommendations: Our science-based insights inform product development, treatment evaluation, and the discovery of new therapeutic targets supporting technology-driven innovation at every step.

Expert team: A multidisciplinary team of bioinformaticians, microbiologists, and statisticians interprets your results, ensuring that discoveries are robust, reproducible, and tailored to your specific needs.

Ready to transform your approach to skin health and personal care? Contact us today to unlock new insights into skin microbiome.

"... offers a suite of sequencing services that we have utilized to generate high quality metagenomic and transcriptomic data for deep microbiome-host analyses."

Christopher Belnap, PhD

CEO- Resilient Biotics

"... helped us regain the pace of our translational microbiome studies. Their user interface for data analysis is a great tool for teams that need bioinformatic and analytic support."