Tao Xu

Biography

1988-1992     B.S. in Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology 1992-1996     Ph.D. in Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology 1996-1999     Postdoctoral Fellow, Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany 1999-2000     Senior Fellow, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Washington, USA 2000-2003     Professor, Institute of Biophysics and Biochemistry, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China 2003-            Professor, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Research Interest

Our studies focus on two aspects: one is to identify key proteins and regulatory mechanisms involved in the docking, priming and fusion of different secretary vesicles, particularly large dense-core vesicles (DCVs) and GLUT4 storage vesicles (GSVs). The other is to develop novel super-resolution imaging tools, in combination with spectroscopic, biophysical and electron microscopy techniques. 1. We maintain our focus on regulated exocytosis involved in blood glucose regulation, trying to elucidate the key molecular events involved in insulin release. We are now approaching this goal in a systematical way by combining a variety of techniques taken from different scientific fields and assessing protein function from molecule to system level. For example, by constructing protein mutants and RNA interference, we explore roles of multiple proteins in distinct exocytotic processes; then we combine techniques like optical imaging, electrophysiology and biological chemistry to study the co-localization, function and interaction of these proteins at cellular level; in the end, we employ gene knockout and transgenetic animals to study the function of certain protein at system level. 2. Another direction is to develop new methods to improve the performance of currently used diffraction-unlimited microscopy especially in spatial resolution, temporal resolution and labeling technology. We are generating novel algorithms for super-resolution microscopy with higher resolution and accuracy. We are also developing instruments for near-molecular resolution optical microscopy, capable of imaging intracellular proteins with nanometer resolution and determining the static structural relationship between two or more proteins of interest at the molecular level.