Self-duplicating results in exponential growth, which underlies infectious diseases. In general, drugs can reduce the rate of growth by inhibiting proliferation, killing pathogens, or both. Correspondingly, tolerance and resistance could be developed to evade from drugs.

Dr. Liu Jia Feng tried to understand the bacterial evolution of tolerance and resistance to antibiotics, quantify killing efficiency of drug combinations, and hoping to optimize treatment to infectious diseases.

In collaboration with clinics, he followed the evolution of MRSA strains isolated from patients under antibiotics treatment. With newly developed tolerance detection techniques, the evolutionary trajectory from tolerance to resistance under drug combination was demonstrated, especially for suppressive combinations. This provided a new point to understand the evolution of antibiotic resistance, and warned the importance to measure tolerance in clinical settings.

1. Liu, Jiafeng, Orit Gefen, Irine Ronin, Maskit Bar-Meir, and Nathalie Q. Balaban. 2020. “Effect of Tolerance on the Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance under Drug Combinations.” Science 367(6474):200–204.

2. Zhao, Yanna, Boyan Lv, Fengqi Sun, Liu Jiafeng, Yan Wang, Yuanyuan Gao, Feng Qi, Zengyi Chang, and Xinmiao Fu. 2020. “Rapid Freezing Enables Aminoglycosides To Eradicate Bacterial Persisters via Enhancing Mechanosensitive Channel MscL-Mediated Antibiotic Uptake.” MBio 11(1).

3. Nathalie Q. Balaban and Liu Jiafeng. 2019. “Evolution Under Antibiotic Treatments: Interplay Between Antibiotic Persistence, Tolerance, and Resistance.” Pp. 1–17 in Persister Cells and Infectious Disease. Springer. (Invited book Chapter).

4. Liu Jiafeng, Orit Gefen and Nathalie Q. Balaban. 2017. “Tackling Antibiotic Resistance with Systems-Level Perspective”, Cell Syst. Cell Press, 5(6), 546–548. (Invited opinion paper).

5. Liu Jiafeng, Xinmiao Fu, and Zengyi Chang. 2016. “A Reciprocating Motion-Driven Rotation Mechanism for the ATP Synthase.” Science China Life Sciences 59(1):44–48.

6. Liu Jiafeng, Xinmiao Fu, and Zengyi Chang. 2015. “Hypoionic Shock Treatment Enables Aminoglycosides Antibiotics to Eradicate Bacterial Persisters.” Scientific Reports 5:14247.

7. Fu, Xinmiao, Xiaodong Shi, Linxiang Yin, Liu Jiafeng, Keehyoung Joo, Jooyoung Lee, and Zengyi Chang. 2013. “Small Heat Shock Protein IbpB Acts as a Robust Chaperone in Living Cells by Hierarchically Activating Its Multi-Type Substrate-Binding Residues.” The Journal of Biological Chemistry 288(17):11897–906.