Biography
I’m a molecular biologist, currently studying the human microbiome and how it connects to human physiology, ancestral history, disease predisposition, culture, and social network. I started my journey as a researcher of human diversity and diseases in 2011, when I joined the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology as an assistant. I completed a MSc degree at the University of Sydney by research about the gut microbiome of young women in Bali and how that relates to their health and changing lifestyle.
I’m currently a member of the Selwyn College and a Cambridge Trust Scholar.
Research
My research goal is to understand public health issues through the lens of a population geneticist, behavioural ecologist, and microbial ecologist. At the present, I am involved in a population study of the relationship between human genetics, microbiome composition, human behaviour, and environmental variance in several locations in Indonesia. I study how lifestyle change has affected the health of select Indonesian populations and whether their history has left marks in their genome and gut microbiome composition. My PhD project is about tropical hunter-gatherers of island Southeast Asia. I believe that analysing the mobility of hunter-gathering groups in Island South-East Asia, along with their genetics, diet, and the microbiome may lead to the discovery of different sets of evolutionary drivers of human genetic diversity that were not present in settled populations. Hence, there could be some insight into the processes that impacted present-day biological state and health status.
Key Publications
- Al-Jawadi AA, Priliani L, …, Febinia CA, et al. (2021) Association of FTO rs1421085 single nucleotide polymorphism with fat and fatty acid intake in Indonesian adults. BMC Res Notes 14, 411.
- Febinia CA, Malik SG, ... & Holmes AJ (2021). Distinctive Microbiome Type Distribution in a Young Adult Balinese Cohort May Reflect Environmental Changes Associated with Modernization. Microbial Ecology, 1-13. doi:10.1007/s00248-021-01786-9.
- Priliani L, Oktavianthi S, …, Febinia CA, et al. (2020). Obesity in the Balinese is associated with FTO rs9939609 and rs1421085 single nucleotide polymorphisms. PeerJ 8, e8327.
- Oktavianthi S, Saraswati MR, …, Febinia CA, et al. (2018) Transcription factor 7-like 2 single nucleotide polymorphisms are associated with lipid profile in the Balinese. Molecular Biology Reports 45, 1135–1143.
- Febinia C, et al. (2015) The role of the gut microbiome in host systems. Microbiology Australia 36, 14–17.
- Oktavianthi S, Trimarsanto H, Febinia CA, et al. (2012) Uncoupling protein 2 gene polymorphisms are associated with obesity. Cardiovascular Diabetology 11, 41.
Teaching and Supervisions
Supervisor: Dr Guy Jacobs
