Dongyou Liu, Ph.D., is currently a research scientist at Human Genetic Signatures, North Ryde, NSW, Australia. Previously, he graduated in 1982 with a veterinary science degree from Hunan Agricultural University, China, and then completed his postgraduate study on immunological diagnosis of human hydatid disease in 1989 at the University of Melbourne, Australia. During the past two decades, he has worked in several research and clinical laboratories in Australia and the United States of America, with emphases on the molecular mechanisms of bacterial pathogenicity and the development of nucleic acid-based assays for species- and virulence-specific determination of microbial pathogens such as ovine footrot bacterium (Dichelobacter nodosus), dermatophyte fungi (Trichophyton, Microsporum and Epidermophyton) and listeriae (Listeria species). He is the editor of Handbook of Listeria monocytogenes and Handbook of Nucleic Acid Purification, both of which are published by CRC Press.