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. 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; Sai Li; In situ architecture and membrane fusion of SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, PNAS 2023; 120(18):e2213332120;
2. Dali Wang#; Jiaxuan Li#; Lei Wang; Yipeng Cao; Bo Kang; Xiangfei Meng; Sai Li*; Chen Song*; Toward Atomistic Models of Intact SARS-CoV-2 via Martini Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulations, Quantitative Biology 2023; 11(4):421-433;
3. Ye Hong#; Yutong Song#; Zheyuan Zhang; 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;
4. Sai Li; Cryo-electron tomography of enveloped viruses, Trends in Biochemical Sciences, 2022; 47(2):173-186;
5. Joel D. Allen; Himanshi Chawla; Firdaus Samsudin; Lorena Zuzic; Aishwary Tukaram Shivgan; Yasunori Watanabe; Wan-ting He; Sean Callaghan; Ge Song; Peter Yong; Philip Brouwer; Yutong Song; Yongfei Cai; Helen M. E. Duyvesteyn; Tomas Malinauskas; Joeri Kint; Paco Pino; Maria J. Wurm; Martin Frank; Bing Chen; David I. Stuart; Rogier W. Sanders; Raiees Andrabi; Dennis R. Burton; Sai Li; Peter J. Bond*; Max Crispin*; Site-specific steric control of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycosylation, Biochemistry, 2021, 60(27):2153-2169;
6. 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*; Sai Li*; Molecular architecture of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, Cell 2020; 183(3):730-738;
ESI hot paper
7. Ying Liu#; Yutong Song#; Siyu Zhang; Min Diao; Shanjin Huang; Sai Li; Xu Tan; PSGL-1 inhibits HIV-1 infection by restricting actin dynamics and sequestering HIV envelope proteins, Cell Discovery, 2020, 6(1):53-67;
8. 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; 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
