Research focus:

• Ecology and evolution of foodborne pathogens

• Antimicrobial resistance in the environment

Research: 

Type II toxin-antitoxin systems (e.g. GNAT-RHH, RES-Xre)

• To understand the distributions and interactions of type II toxin-antitoxin systems, and their roles in antibiotic tolerance and virulence plasmid stability in pathogens (e.g., Klebsiella pneumoniae) and lactic acid bacteria (e.g., Levilactobacillus brevis)

Database curation

• Created golden datasets consisting of carefully curated collections of mobile genetic element associated with antibiotic resistance (VRprofile2)  and toxin-antitoxin systems (TADB 3.0).

Research: 

Non-communicable disease (e.g., diabetes, chronic kidney disease, colorectal cancer)

• To understand the relationship between body composition (e.g., creatinine and body weight) and incident diabetes

• To assess colorectal cancer awareness and the iFOBT-positive rate among the urban poor.

Communicable disease (e.g., SARS-CoV-2)

• Established a prospective COVID-19 cohort to study risk factors for disease severity and long COVID symptoms.

Technical support of health cohort

• To investigate the stability of HbA1c measurements from samples that have braved the test of time in deep freeze.

• To understand why participants might leave a long-term health study, aiming to ensure that every voice counts in the grand narrative of public health.

Research:

Bacterial fitness and virulence

•  To shed light on the roles of specific genes (i.e., fliL) in Burkholderia pseudomallei by constructing deletion mutants