Our research centers around microbiology and its applications in the fields of energy, the environment, and human health. We have two major themes for our ongoing research: the Built Environment Microbiome and Renewable Compound Biomanufacturing.
Built Environment Microbiome
We focus on understanding the microbial communities associated with different components of the built environment, including indoor and outdoor air, surfaces, and occupants. We are also interested in waste and wastewater treatment systems. To facilitate our research, we utilize advanced multi-omics tools, such as next-generation sequencing, transcriptomics, and proteomics. By gaining insights into the microbiome, our goal is to manipulate the microbial communities in a knowledge-driven manner to enhance the robustness of the systems.
Renewable Compound Biomanufacturing
We adopt a systems biology framework to engineer bacteria for the production of value-added compounds from renewable sources. To achieve this, we employ techniques such as metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, and genome-scale metabolic modeling. We are also highly interested in exploring the functions of enzymes, particularly through our microbiome research, which generates numerous intriguing sequences. The feedstocks we investigate include renewable plant biomass and C1 compounds. Our overarching goals are to replace fossil fuels and develop efficient biomanufacturing processes.
We are grateful for the financial supports provided by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, Innovation and Technology Commission, City University of Hong Kong, and industrial partners to our on-going research projects.
