Principal Investigator and Professor of Chemistry

Office: Chem Bldg 545

2003-2007 B.S.         Nanjing University, CN                              Supervisor: Prof. Jianwei Zhao

2007-2010 M.S.        Xiamen Univerisity, CN                              Supervisor: Prof. Yun-Bao Jiang

2010-2015 Ph.D.       Emory University, US                                 Supervisor: Prof. Vincent P. Conticello

2016-2019 Postdoc  University of California, Berkeley, US         Supervisor: Prof. Ting Xu

Tao grew up in Huaian, Jiangsu province, China. When he studied chemistry in high school, he knew he had found his career. Tao studied general chemistry in Nanjing and learned engineering and fluorescence analysis of green fluorescent proteins from Prof. Yun-Bao Jiang in Xiamen. He traveled to Georgia, US, and spent five years studying the design of self-assembling collagen-mimetic peptides with Prof. Vincent P. Conticello. After finishing his Ph.D. studies, Tao went to the west coast, where he started a brand-new exploration in the design of protein-like random heteropolymers with Prof. Ting Xu. Now at Xiamen University, Tao and his team are developing novel strategies to explore synthetic peptide assemblies with controlled composition, shape, and dynamics. They aim to create smart supramolecular biomaterials to detect and analyze cancer cells and cell-related molecular events at the nanometer to micrometer scale.