Little Things Matter Most

For Sharlini Eriza Putri, listening to and understanding the importance of microbiome is the key to solving a lot of modern-day problems

Sharlini Eriza Putri talks about the tiniest things in our lives

“When I breastfed, people used to tell me that my breast milk would not be good enough for my baby if I kept on being a working mother,” Sharlini Eriza Putri told Tatler Indonesia. It was the moment how she first got into the field of genomics. “They told me to feed my baby with infant formula and, of course, I refused.” Trained in chemical engineering and sustainable energy, Putri then launched into a research. She looked up scientific journals about the pros and cons of feeding formula to babies. The findings inspired her to learn more about genomics.

“I found a unique fact that one of the factors distinguishing healthy babies from atopic babies is whether or not they have the B. infantis bacteria in their guts. The bacteria eat human milk oligosaccharides, which is only available in breast milk,” she explained further. ”People need to understand one fundamental paradigm: that every living being is a holobiont, which means we interact with each other, and have a complex interaction with other species. For instance, half of our physical body consists of a mix of microbiomes, which include bacteria, archaea, protists, fungi and virus.”

That understanding further led Putri to found Nusantics, a beauty lab using genomics as its core technology, together with Revata Utama and Vincent Kurniawan. “We chose to introduce the application in beauty as our first line of business because the industry in Indonesia is growing,” she said. At Nusantics, customers can get their skin swabbed and have their skin microbiome balance checked. “Skin microbiome imbalance is related to a lot of skin problems like acne or eczema. Bacteria, fungi and other microbiomes are not always disruptive to the health of our skin; we need each one of them at a balanced amount.”

Putri has an even bigger dream for Nusantics, and the beauty industry is just a stepping stone. Nusantics has a vision to educate people that microbiome diversity and balance matter. Understanding microbiome is key to the different aspects of life from health to food sovereignty, beauty treatments, energy sustainability, and so much more.

Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic spread in Indonesia, Nusantics found another application for its technology by creating Pcr-swab test kits for the government. With the equipment it already has, this opportunity is also the time to educate people about microbiome balance. “Although the pandemic is turning lives upside-down, you could also say that it is a blessing in disguise, a teaching moment about the microbiome to the public because the topic is relevant, and people could see how it works and study the result directly,” Putri said. “This is in line with our general strategy at Nusantics in which we allocate one hour to educate every customer that comes to our business.”

At the end of our interview, she re-emphasised how important understanding microbiome is. “Indonesia has the potential to excel in the industries that employ this knowledge because our biodiversity index is one of the highest in the world, if not at the very top of the list,” Putri said. “However, we have not done enough exploration of our biodiversity. We need to educate more people about this subject, so that we can build a strong biodiversity-based industry in Indonesia.”