The arms race between hosts and microbes facilitates their co-evolution. To survive this tug-of-war, host immune systems constantly evolve new strategies to kill pathogens, while pathogens also develop additional immune escape mechanisms to ensure their viability and reproduction. These evolving infection and anti-infection mechanisms of pathogens and hosts are the focus of research in our laboratory. In recent years, we have been dedicated to biochemical and structural studies of bacterial anti-phage mechanisms (e.g., bacterial CRISPR-Cas systems) and the pathogenic mechanisms of human pathogens.

"The red queen race"