Research interests
I used to study how bacteria successively colonized the terrestrial environment via genomic variations during my PhD and later fascinated by how those tiny bugs, after land colonization, established extensive interactions with different hosts including us humans.
My research now is mainly focused on the roles that our gut microbes play in different cardiometabolic diseases such as NAFLD, T2D, and heart failure, and how the underlying human-microbiota interactions might affect the associated therapeutic options. For example, we have previously reported that metformin-adapted microbial shifts could help boost the glucose-lowering effect of this drug (2017, Nature Medicine) and the rapid improvement of liver lipid metabolism in humans is partly associated with microbially derived folate upon low-carbs, high-protein, and high-fat diet intervention (2018, Cell Metabolism). Besides, I am interested in the evolutionary, phylogenetic, and pan-genomic analyses of representative gut microbes.
Education and Work Experience
2021-present, Fudan Microbiome Center, Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University;
2021-present, Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University;
2015-2020, Sahlgrenska university hospital, University of Gothenburg, Sweden;
2012-2014, Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences;
2007-2012, James Watson Institute of Genome Sciences, Zhejiang University;
2002-2006, Department of Life Sciences, Shandong University of Technology;