Jhih-Hang is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Infectious Diseases and Department of Microbiology, Monash University. He is a molecular microbiologist with specific interests in human bacterial pathogens. He joined Prof Anton Peleg’s laboratory since 2013. Dr Jiang leads the Translational Staphylococcal Research Program. His research focuses on the interface between antibiotic resistance and bacterial pathogenesis in Staphylococcus aureus and Coagulase-negative staphylococci. Using these findings, he aims to develop innovative therapeutic strategies to treat multi-drug resistant S. aureus infections. Jhih-Hang has a wealth of expertise in the biochemical, lipidomic and genetic manipulation approaches, as well as the in vivo models.

S. aureus can cause serious infection of almost any human tissue and mortality from treated infections is up to 35 percent. It is estimated that around 7000 cases of S. aureus blood stream infections occur in Australia each year, and about 25 percent are caused by methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Without the ability to use the antibiotic methicillin, treatment of MRSA infection increasingly relies on last-line antibiotics. The World Health Organization (WHO) has listed MRSA as a ‘high-priority’ pathogen that urgently requires the development of new antimicrobial agents. Daptomycin is one of the last-line antibiotics to treat MRSA infections but daptomycin resistance is emerging. Infections caused by daptomycin-resistant S. aureus are often complicated, with disseminated foci and persistent infection in humans. Our team investigate how S. aureus utilizes a stealth strategy during mammalian infection that includes evasion of antimicrobial action and host immune attack.