Dr. Yang is a molecular biologist and clinical microbiologist, with extensive experience in clinical microbiology, clinical virology, molecular diagnostics, microbial genomics, genomic epidemiology, antimicrobial resistance, and transplant infectious disease diagnostics. He is also a pioneer in the clinical applications of Next-generation Sequencing (NGS) in infectious diseases. Dr. Yang developed and implemented numerous cutting-edge molecular microbiological tests, and authored or coauthored over 80 peer-reviewed papers and 3 book chapters. Dr. Yang currently is an Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine, and serves as the Associate Medical Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory. Dr. Yang is also the Director of the Molecular Microbiology and Pathogen Genomics (MMPG) Laboratory, which integrates the most advanced NGS technologies with pathogen-focused bioinformatics for microbial whole-genome sequencing (WGS) and metagenomics testing, solving the unmet clinical needs in diagnosing and treating challenging infectious diseases cases. The MMPG Laboratory also performs real-time institution-level microbial genomic surveillance for outbreak investigation, emerging pathogen characterization, and AMR monitoring, providing timely and highly actionable information to guide infection prevention and treatment optimization.