My primary research interest is on biological responses of marine organisms to environmental stresses. Specifically, I am most interested in: (a) employing selected biological responses as biomarkers for quantitative detection of environmental stresses, and (b) relating these biological responses to Darwinian fitness traits, in order to assess environmental risks.

Hypoxia affects thousands of km² of marine waters all over the world, and has caused mass mortality of marine animals, benthic defaunation and decline in fisheries production in many places. The severity, frequency of occurrences and spatial scale of hypoxia have increased in the last few decades. Due to rapid human population growth and global warming, the problem of hypoxia is likely to become worse in the coming years. This pressing problem is further augmented by our recent research findings: For the first time in science, my research group has demonstrated that hypoxia is an endocrine disruptor and can affect the balance of sex hormones in fish, leading to a male biased F1 generation. We further found that hypoxia can affect apoptosis during embryonic development, leading to malformations.

Based on these novel discoveries,  major research thrust of my group will focus on understanding the molecular and biochemical mechanisms underlying endocrine disruption by hypoxia. Experiments are being conducted to test the hypothesis that the various genes, enzymes and receptors involved in regulating key reproductive hormones (i.e. steroidogensis, GnRH and GtH) and reproductive processes of fish will be affected by hypoxia, thereby leading to reproductive impairments.