The treatment failure on bacterial infection diseases has become a global crisis again only less than 100 years after the first antibiotic was introduced for clinical use. It was estimated that ten million people across the world will be killed by antimicrobial resistant infections by 2050. Our lab is interested to understand how bacterial pathogens infect hosts as well as how antibiotics kill them, aiming to find solutions for global crisis of the antibiotic resistance.
Mechanism of bacterial death
The crisis of antibiotics resistance calls for urgent actions to develop new antibiotics. One efficient way to achieve this goal is to understand how the current antibiotics act on bacteria and how bacteria respond to antibiotic killing as well as how bacteria develop antibiotic resistance. Such effort could lead to the identification of novel candidates as a target for new chemical identities with novel mode of action. With Acinetobacter baumannii and Escherichia coli as the model microorganisms, we employ a diverse toolkit, including genetics, biochemical, chemical genetic and metabolomic profiling, for key factors leading to bacterial tolerance to antibiotic killing. Our goal is to identify new targets for the development of more effective chemotherapies.
Bacterial pathogenesis
We attempt to understand the molecular mechanism that bacterial pathogens use to attack and exploit hosts. Currently we mainly focus on type VI secretion system (T6SS), a complex molecular nanomachine for translocation of effector proteins to eukaryotic cells or prokaryotic competitors. With Vibrio parahaemolyticus as a model, we are dedicating to the role of T6SSs during bacterial survival and infection as well as the underlying mechanism of action of the effectors.
Development of new antibacterials
We look for new antibacterial reagent for resistant bacterial pathogens and are interested in multi-discipline collaborations.
