Dr. Yanfeng Liu focuses on microbial metabolic engineering and systems biology for efficient synthesis of nutraceutically important and cosmetically useful biochemicals. Specifically, systems biology, computational biology, and systems metabolic engineering approaches were developed and applied to identify and eliminate rate-limiting steps in biosynthesis of nutraceuticals and biochemicals, such as N-acetylneuraminic acid and ceramide. Fermentation process optimization is combined with microbial cell factories construction for improved target compound production. Dr. Liu has authored 14 papers including review and research papers published on peer-reviewed journals, including leading journals in his area, such as Nature Communications, Biotechnology Advances, and Metabolic Engineering, etc. He has won the Best Paper Award of the 7th International Forum on Industrial Bioprocesses (2017).