Li Sai Ph.D.
Associate Professor
2018-present School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, China Principal Investigator
2017-2018 STRUBI, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, UK Senior Research Associate
2013-2017 STRUBI, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, UK Postdoctoral Researcher
2009-2012 Physics department, University of Goettingen, Germany Dr.rer.nat.
2006-2008 Physics department, University of Stuttgart, Germany M.S.
2002-2006 School of Physics, Wuhan University, China B.S.
Research interest
My lab focuses on cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) and its application in in-situ structural biology, especially in emerging enveloped viruses.
We aim at bridging dimensions between sub-nanometer resolution structures to micrometer scale in in-situ landscapes, a soaring demand in the field of structural biology. To achieve this, we are active in developing cryo-ET methods, including: (1) high throughput cryo-ET and subtomogram averaging at near-atomic resolution; (2) cryogenic focused-ion beam milling (cryo-FIB) and (3) correlative light and electron microscopy (CLEM).
We primarily use cryo-ET to study the assembly, infection and immunization of emerging enveloped viruses. We aim to find the weaknesses of these viruses, and hope to gain in situ structural and mechanistic insights into antibody and vaccine design.
Selected publications
1. Hangping Yao#, Yutong Song#, Qi Huang#, Miaojin Zhu#, Jiaming Liang, Zheyuan Zhang, Xiaodi Zhang, Dongyang Dong, Danrong Shi, Zhigang Wu, Xiangyun Lu, Haibo Wu, Yong Chen and Sai Li, Cryo-ET of IgG Bivalent Binding on SARS-CoV-2 Provides Structural Basis for Antibody Avidity. bioRxiv, 2025. DOI: 10.1101/2025.02.28.640788.
2. Dongyang Dong, Yutong Song, Shipo Wu, Busen Wang, Cheng Peng, Weizheng Kong, Zheyuan Zhang, Li-Hua Hou and Sai Li, Molecular basis of Ad5-nCoV Vaccine-Induced Immunogenicity. Structure, 2025,33:1-11
3. Maofei Chen#, Yutong Song#, Sensen Zhang#, Yitang Zhang#, Minghui Zhang, Xin Gao, Sai Li* and Maojun Yang*, Molecular architecture of mammalian pyruvate dehydrogenase complex. Protein & Cell, 2025,16(1):72-78.
4. Ye Hong#, Baoying Huang#, Junxia Zhang#, Cheng Peng, Weizheng Kong, Wenjie Tan* and Sai Li*, Molecular Architecture of Monkeypox Mature Virus. Cell Discovery, 2024,10(1):108.
5. Yutong Song#, Hangping Yao#, Nanping Wu#, Jialu Xu#, Zheyuan Zhang#, Cheng Peng, Shibo Li, Weizheng Kong, Yong Chen, Miaojin Zhu, Jiaqi Wang, Danrong Shi, Chongchong Zhao, Xiangyun Lu, Martín Echavarría Galindo and Sai Li, In situ architecture and membrane fusion of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant. PNAS, 2023; 120(18):e2213332120.
6. Dali Wang#, Jiaxuan Li#, Lei Wang, Yipeng Cao, Bo Kang, Xiangfei Meng, Sai Li* and Chen Song*, Toward Atomistic Models of Intact SARS-CoV-2 via Martini Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulations. Quantitative Biology, 2023; 11(4):421-433.
7. Ye Hong#, Yutong Song#, Zheyuan Zhang and Sai Li, Cryo-electron tomography: the resolution revolution and a surge of in situ virological discoveries. Annual Review of Biophysics, 2023; 52(1):339-360.
8. Sai Li, Cryo-electron tomography of enveloped viruses. Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 2022; 47(2):173-186.
9. Hangping Yao#, Yutong Song#, Yong Chen#, Nanping Wu#, Jialu Xu#, Chujie Sun, Jiaxing Zhang, Tianhao Weng, Zheyuan Zhang, Zhigang Wu, Linfang Cheng, Danrong Shi, Xiangyun Lu, Jianlin Lei, Max Crispin, Yigong Shi, Lanjuan Li* and Sai Li*, Molecular architecture of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Cell, 2020; 183(3):730-738.
ESI hot paper
10. Xiaoling Wu#, Hua Yue#, Yuanyu Zhang#, Xiaoyong Gao, Xiaoyang Li, Licheng Wang, Yufei Cao, Miao Hou, Haixia An, Lin Zhang*, Sai Li*, Jingyuan Ma, He Lin, Yanan Fu, Hongkai Gu, Wenyong Lou, Wei Wei*, Richard N. Zare and Jun Ge*, Packaging and delivering enzymes by amorphous metal-organic frameworks. Nature Communications, 2019; 10(1):5165;
# Equal contribution; * Co-corresponding
Contact information
Lab website：http://www.lisailab.com
Tel：+86-10-62792357
E-mail：sai@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn
Address: Biomedical Hall, A318. Tsinghua University, 100084 Beijing
