Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), and Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology (AAM). He currently serves as Director of the State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, President of the Chinese Society for Microbiology, Vice President of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Biotechnology, and Chair of the International Committee on Genetics of Industrial Microorganisms (GIM-IC). He also holds the position of Associate Editor of the American journal ACS Chemical Biology and serves on the editorial boards of dozens of domestic and international journals, including CELL Chemical Biology and Applied & Environmental Microbiology.

He has long been engaged in molecular biology research on microbial metabolism, focusing on actinomycete genetics and the chemical biology of antibiotic biosynthesis. His research areas include DNA replication regulation, restriction and modification systems, microbial metabolic pathways, metabolic engineering, biochemistry of secondary metabolites, and genetic engineering for the innovation of non-natural antibiotic drugs. He discovered sulfur modification on the DNA backbone, systematically studied the biochemical mechanism and biological significance of DNA sulfur modification, and pioneered a new branch field of epigenetics internationally. He has published over 400 research papers in domestic and international academic journals.