Outstanding Researcher Award

Associate Professor ZHANG Lian-Hui

Institute of Molecular Agrobiology

Assoc Prof Zhang receives the Outstanding Researcher Award for his revolutionary work in the control of bacterial infection through quorum quenching - a process that stops bacterial cell-to-cell communication. The breakthrough is a radical departure from the traditional method of using antibiotics to combat bacteria.

To Assoc Prof Zhang, his research laboratory is more than a place of work. It is a platform from which his imagination can take full flight, and where he can enjoy the wonderment that comes with an innate sense of curiosity. In his eyes, his award-winning research in bacterial control through quorum quenching is a battlefield where the tide can be turned against bacteria cells by disrupting their communication lines. His particular intuition for discovery and passion for research have kept him engaged for the past ten years in a project that he embarked on as a graduate student, when he was among the first few to identify bacterial quorum-sensing signals. These signals are the language used by bacteria for cell-to-cell communication.

The results of Assoc Prof Zhang's findings are presently based on the use of a plant pathogen, Agrobacterium tumefaciens, as a model organism to study quorum-sensing mediated gene regulation. He and his team have already identified a range of mutant pathogens that are defective at different stages of quorum-sensing signaling. Genetic analysis of the mutants has enabled them to outline how bacteria enter and exit quorum sensing, leading them to formulate and demonstrate the quorum-quenching strategy.

The award for Assoc Prof Zhang is a beginning, not an end. His battle against the bugs does not end until he takes his unraveling of the molecular mechanism of bacterial quorum sensing to the next level of warfare, that is, against the emerging superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics.