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Assistant Professor
UNC-Chapel Hill
Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose
After my MD training, I started work at National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention, China CDC as a research physician. I was the domestic investigator of the study “Drug resistance in HIV-1 non-B subtypes” (NIH R01 grant AI66922) and leading investigator of the pediatric HIV and hepatitis coinfection study and adult HIV and hepatitis B coinfection cohort study. I started my postdoctoral training at Department of Infectious Diseases and Lineberger Cancer Center, UNC-Chapel Hill from 2011 to 2014 under the direction of Dr. Ronald Swanstrom, during which I started to use Primer ID approach combined with next generation sequencing to study HIV-1 intra-host viral diversity, drug resistance mutations, viral co-receptor tropism. I adapted Primer ID approach with Illumina MiSeq platform and resolved several issues with using Primer ID approach in viral genetic studies. I also developed bioinformatics tools to analyze Primer ID sequencing data. I’m highly experienced with next generations sequencing and bioinformatics approaches. I’m currently using the next generation sequencing tools to study viral evolution, pathogenesis, drug resistance and molecular epidemiology of several human viral pathogens including HIV, SARS-CoV2, ZIKV, LACV, hepatitis C virus, etc. I lead a state-wide molecular epidemiology study to identify recent HIV-1 infection and transmitted drug resistance mutations among newly diagnosed individuals in North Carolina since 2018. In recent years I have developed approaches to study genotoxicity of antiviral compounds in a mammalian cell model. I have more than 30 research publications on scientific journals and have presented work multiple times at international conferences. My research findings lead to successful funding of several NIH grants.