T. K. Martin Tsui

I am a postdoctoral fellow at the labs of Juan Du and Wei Lü at Van Andel Institute. I'm learning membrane protein biochemistry and electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) to study temperature and chemical sensing, non-selective cation channels and solute carrier transporter proteins from human and other organisms.

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My scientific journey started at UC San Diego as a junior transfer student in 2008. I worked in the lab of Hector Viadiu (Chemistry & Biochemistry) to study DNA-binding proteins and X-ray crystallography. I then spent a year at the Chinese University of Hong Kong as an associate (visiting) student while volunteered in the lab of Sik Lok Sherlock Lam [here for a story about my story with Dr. Lam] (Chemistry) to learn about DNA folding using solution state NMR in the first half of 2011. In Fall 2012, I became a Ph.D. student and joined the lab of Hong Li (Institute of Molecular Biophysics) at the Florida State University to study various CRISPR-associate proteins and protein:nucleic acid complexes, including the world's first thermalstable Cas9, AceCas9, from Acidothermus cellulolyticus 11B. After graduation in summer 2017, I spent a month in the labs of Brian Miller and Jim Frederich (Chemistry & Biochemistry) as a postdoctoral researcher to repurpose a novel enzyme, before moving to UCSF to study human host factors that associated with HIV-1 Rev protein with Alan D. Frankel (Biochemistry & Biophysics) in Fall 2017. I then joined the lab of Kliment A. Verba (Pharmaceutical Chemistry) in Fall 2018 where I studied cancer-related human kinase protein complexes through biochemistry and structural biology using cryo-EM. I was also part of a UCSF mega team that studies COVID-19, as a member of the Structural Biology Consortium in QBI Coronavirus Research Group (QCRG) at UC San Francisco.