His research interests are Raman single cell biotechnology and synthetic biology. He is one of the pioneers who have utilised Raman micro-spectroscopy for the study of single cells, and this technology helps to manipulate and sort non-culturable microbes, study cell-cell (nanoparticles) interactions and gene expression of single cells. He versioned that single cell Raman spectra can be regarded as single cell phenotypic profiles, indicating cell physiology and linking cells and their metabolic activities. He developed various Raman activated cell sorting using microfluidic device and advanced laser lift technologies, and the sorted cells can be used for single cell genomics and transcriptomics. He acted as a guest editor to address single cell biotechnology for Current Opinion in Biotechnology in 2012. He has published 70 journal papers, 13 book chapters or proceedings and 12 patents.