Investigation of the skin microbiome

The traditional way of finding out which bacteria are present in the skin is to take a sample using a swab. One limitation of this is that swab samples are taken from the skin surface only, whereas bacteria may be present in the deeper layers of the skin as well. Researchers from Sweden, Ireland and the UK looked at the difference between the results of swabs and actual biopsies (tissue samples) of the skin. One swab sample and one 2 mm punch...