Her name is Xiao Tianxia, she is a Tianjin girl, and she is also a 2013 graduate of the Yaohua Middle School five-year experimental class. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently studying for a Ph.D. in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton University.
pic | Xiao Tianxia (Source: Xiao Tianxia)
Recently, her new paper was published in the sub-job of Nature . Simply put, this study is to break up old knowledge and resolve it, thereby achieving multiple "first discoveries".
Before setting a topic for research, Xiao Tianxia first conducted a thought experiment, namely: if alcohol can freely spread across the cell membrane, the alcohol produced by fermenting yeast will definitely be freely returned to the cell.
At the same time, this thought experiment challenges the traditional view of "double-phase growth". The focus is on how to use chemical biological methods to track the whereabouts of alcohol and how to make this discovery improve people's understanding of overflowing metabolism.
Moreover, Xiao Tianxia has always been interested in how small metabolic molecules promote the collaboration of biochemical reactions between mitochondria and cytoplasm. Later in this research, she used the protrotrophic yeast gene knockout strain library that she previously established in her laboratory to explore and discover that biological enzyme is a necessary gene for ethanol as a mitochondrial carbon source.
So, it was proved for the first time by chemical biological methods (isotope calibration + UPLC/MS): acetyl-CoA hydratase is a necessary gene for ethanol carbon source to enter the mitochondria of Saccharomyces cerevisiae .
Looking back, this work not only solves the shortcomings in the previous field, but also gives people a further understanding of the functions of biological enzymes in mitochondria.
"In fact, when studying a phenomenon that has existed in textbooks for many years, I was always nervous, afraid that I would miss a step, so that I could not better convince readers." Xiao Tianxia said. Fortunately, the research was successfully completed and the paper was published as scheduled.
Recently, the relevant paper was published on Nature Chemical Biology High Tianxia is the first author, and Professor Joshua D. Rabinowitz of the Department of Chemistry of Princeton University serves as the corresponding author of .
Figure | Related papers (Source: Nature Chemical Biology)
mentioned the reviewer's evaluation. She said: "After reading the reviewer's first round of comments, my inner portrayal is: I was flattered. What makes me happiest is that all the three reviewers affirmed the important contribution of this research to overflowing metabolism."
For the research process, she said that an important step is how to "quarrel" with the tutor. In her first year of her PhD, she took turns to two laboratories and communicated with the two mentors separately before she officially joined the current laboratories. Then, I began to look for thesis topic. When
first joined the group, she was the only one in the Bioenergy project, so she followed her mentor to find a topic. Interestingly, although the preliminary and important results of this study were made before ’s defense, , but were not written in the defense.
The main reason is that the instructor asked many questions about her initial results, and she could not solve this quickly at that time.
In addition, the experimental design she made is very intuitive and easy to operate, but gradually supplementing the logic requires time, so this research has been in the semi-confidential stage. Speaking of this, Xiao Tianxia said: "I think it is very important to think about the guidance of the tutor and not blindly follow it."
The first summer vacation of her PhD, she brought a first-year undergraduate student (commonly known as "small book") from Princeton University for research. In the second year of her PhD, in addition to writing a defense for the opening, she also tried many small experiments with the "small book" students to dig out the topic. After measuring some topics, they finally selected the topic. Before the epidemic, the "small book" students were mainly led by the "small book" students and Xiao Tianxia was responsible for the analysis and summary.
In the spring of the epidemic, the "small book" students happened to be exchanged in Germany, and the United States also had three months banned in all aspects, which led to The project was once shelved. After
, due to the sudden outage of cross-border medical insurance, the "Xiaoben" classmates had to return to Russia for distance learning, but they could not return to Princeton campus until graduation.
At that time, Xiao Tianxia basically went to the laboratory when he could go to the laboratory during the day. After processing the data in the evening, he sent it to the "Xiaoben" classmates who had just woken up in other time zones. When he woke up the next morning, they continued to discuss it by email.
"Can steadily do it from scratch to the present, I am very grateful for the time management I have cultivated over the years and the habit of working with multi-threaded . "Xiao Tianxia said.
. The most intuitive thing about the application prospects of this achievement may be that it will bring great help to re-education of high school textbooks. In addition, she also hopes that this work can bring inspiration to bioenergy such as ethanol and brewing industries.
. Before the final draft of this paper is finalized Xiao Tianxia was actually very conflicted. Once he couldn't sleep in the middle of the night, he called a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory to discuss, but the result of the discussion was "a dinner party on Friday night to relax." But the most unforgettable thing was that due to the impact of the epidemic, the experiment was completely shelved, and his colleagues were also very nervous.
"I was also very conflicted at that time, but after considering it from multiple parties, I did not return to China, but instead used the The identity of the Minister of the Publicity Department of the 19-20 Princeton Students and Scholars Federation has made contributions to the procurement, donation and written releases of hospital materials in Wuhan and Princeton. This experience also helped me to stabilize my mentality, study hard, and do what I can do after the outbreak of the epidemic. "She said.
Based on this topic, she and her collaborators also conducted other experiments, that is, considering the yeast metabolic cycle and organelles , based on the collaboration on the phenomenon of overflow metabolism, based on Crabtree-negative and Crabtree-positive led by the third author The relevant discovery of yeast strains has made an important model basis. At present, the relevant papers are being submitted.
can become a scientific researcher today, and it must start from Xiao Tianxia's high school years. At that time, with the opportunity to participate in the Biology Olympic Competition (later admitted to Fudan by "1000 points"), she established the idea of studying biology undergrad.
At that time, she got a good study abroad Opportunity. After several measurements, I decided to go to the University of California, Berkeley to broaden my horizons and then study at the school's Natural Resources College.
When she was studying at Berkeley, she also studied natural economy and policy majors and nutrition and toxicology majors. With the help of the chemistry score in the American University Preparatory Course Examination, she completed all basic organic chemistry courses in the first year, and the second year she passed the school's outstanding student research project, following John E. Casida, a US National Academician and Wolf Award winner of the Wolf Award winner. Professor E. Casida conducted independent research. In the third year of undergraduate degree, she completed the thesis defense of undergraduate degree . At that time, her project focused on pesticide safety, that is, synthesis of quaternary heterocyclic compounds and determining its enzyme inhibitory effect.
"One of the interesting things to say is that when I was in the laboratory of Professor Casid, I was the only student doing experimental research and had to learn many skills from scratch. Fortunately, I received the help of the staff of the Nuclear Magnetic Center at that time, and also used the mass spectrometry center to do some cracking analysis of small molecules of organophosphorus." He said.
In addition, the World Research University Alliance short-term summer research project has also enriched its undergraduate experience. During the summer vacation of freshman year, he exchanged for Peking University to study international relations and Chinese economics. During her junior year's summer vacation, she came to Zurich Polytechnic to study the food supply chain. She said: "This experience also indirectly encouraged me to conduct basic research and industrial exploration related to synthetic biology ." After
After coming to Princeton University for a doctorate, Xiao Tianxia paid more attention to the learning of chemistry and biology knowledge, as well as further learning of quantitative methods. Although he is a student of , the college’s numerical analysis method can be learned from the School of Applied Mathematics School of Applied Mathematics, and he can also take advantage of the basic course of graph theory by Professor Daniu.
2021 During the summer vacation of 2021, based on her interest in food science, she organized a startup project at the Princeton University incubator, which greatly enhanced her interest in venture capital and had some contact with venture capital. Perhaps, Xiao Tianxia is expected to embark on a business journey after graduating from a doctorate.
Reference materials:
1.Xiao, T., Khan, A., Shen, Y. et al. Glucose feeds the tricarboxylic acid cycle via excerted ethanol in fermenting yeast. Nat Chem Biol (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-022-01091-7
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-