The scientific focus of Dr. Wenyuan Shi's laboratory is to understand the molecular mechanism of bacterial pathogenesis and to apply this knowledge to develop new biotechnology.

There are five research projects in Shi's laboratory which enable the researchers to study oral bacterial pathogenesis from a basic, pre-clinical and clinical point of view: analyzing the role of motility and chemotaxis of Trepomena denticola in bacterial tissue penetration and invasion, characterizing a new bacterial surface protein which can induce apoptosis of human lymphocytes, developing diagnostic and therapeutic methods to control cavity-causing bacterium Streptococcus mutans, characterizing new antibacterial compounds in traditional medicinal herbs and studying intercellular signaling of Myxococcus xanthus, a Gram-negative bacterium that undergoes a multicellular development and a primitive differentiation.