Ruifu Yang received a B.S. degree in 1985 from Hebei University of Medicine, Hebei, China, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Academy of Military Medical Science, Beijing, China, in 1998 and 2002, respectively. He is a Professor at the Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, Academy of Military Medical Science. His interests include the development of rapid methods for detection of medically important pathogens, bacterial genomics and pathogenesis, and microbial forensics.