Background
Darren Hsu joined NCCS in April 2021 as a postdoc. He graduated from National Taiwan University with a B.S. in Chemistry in 2015, and completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Northwestern University in 2020. His Ph.D. research focused on capturing protein unfolded states with a combination of pump-probe X-ray solution scattering experiments and molecular dynamic (MD) simulations. In particular, he developed GPU-accelerated on-the-fly X-ray scattering signal calculation algorithms to aid protein conformational search towards signal-compatible structures in MD simulations. After earning the Ph.D. he joined AstraZeneca as a postdoc working on molecular dynamics methods aiming at bridging different protein states in the same CryoEM dataset. At NCCS, his research focuses on deciphering binding poses of ligands through a variety of methods, including classical molecular simulations of induced-fit effects, simultaneous prediction of protein-ligand structures from sequences with deep learning models, and X-ray scattering-based density retrieval algorithms.
Awards
2022 — Finalist, 2022 ACM Gordon Bell Special Prize for High Performance Computing-Based COVID-19 Research
2020 — Northwestern University Department of Chemistry Award for Excellence in Graduate Research
2018 — Department of Energy Office of Science Graduate Student Research Award
2016 — National Institute of Health Molecular Biophysics Training Program
Publications
2022
Mara, Michael W., Brian T. Phelan, Zhu-Lin Xie, Tae Wu Kim, Darren J. Hsu, Xiaolin Liu, Andrew J. S. Valentine, et al. 2022. “Unveiling Ultrafast Dynamics in Bridged Bimetallic Complexes Using Optical and X-Ray Transient Absorption Spectroscopies.” Chemical Science 13 (6): 1715–24. https://doi.org/10.1039/D1SC05034F.
2021
Hsu, Darren J., Denis Leshchev, Irina Kosheleva, Kevin L. Kohlstedt, and Lin X. Chen. 2021. “Unfolding Bovine α-Lactalbumin with T-Jump: Characterizing Disordered Intermediates via Time-Resolved X-Ray Solution Scattering and Molecular Dynamics Simulations.” The Journal of Chemical Physics 154 (10): 105101. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0039194.
2021
Nijhawan, Adam K., Arnold M. Chan, Darren J. Hsu, Lin X. Chen, and Kevin L. Kohlstedt. 2021. “Resolving Dynamics in the Ensemble: Finding Paths through Intermediate States and Disordered Protein Structures.” The Journal of Physical Chemistry B 125 (45): 12401–12. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c05820.
2020
Hsu, Darren J., Denis Leshchev, Irina Kosheleva, Kevin L. Kohlstedt, and Lin X. Chen. 2020. “Integrating Solvation Shell Structure in Experimentally Driven Molecular Dynamics Using X-Ray Solution Scattering Data.” The Journal of Chemical Physics 152 (20): 204115. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0007158.
2019
Hsu, Darren J., Denis Leshchev, Dolev Rimmerman, Jiyun Hong, Matthew S. Kelley, Irina Kosheleva, Xiaoyi Zhang, and Lin X. Chen. 2019. “X-Ray Snapshots Reveal Conformational Influence on Active Site Ligation during Metalloprotein Folding.” Chemical Science 10 (42): 9788–9800. https://doi.org/10.1039/C9SC02630D.
2019
Rimmerman, Dolev, Denis Leshchev, Darren J. Hsu, Jiyun Hong, Baxter Abraham, Robert Henning, Irina Kosheleva, and Lin X. Chen. 2019. “Revealing Fast Structural Dynamics in PH-Responsive Peptides with Time-Resolved X-Ray Scattering.” The Journal of Physical Chemistry B 123 (9): 2016–21. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.9b00072.
2018
Rimmerman, Dolev, Denis Leshchev, Darren J. Hsu, Jiyun Hong, Baxter Abraham, Irina Kosheleva, Robert Henning, and Lin X. Chen. 2018. “Insulin Hexamer Dissociation Dynamics Revealed by Photoinduced T -Jumps and Time-Resolved X-Ray Solution Scattering.” Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences 17 (7): 874–82. https://doi.org/10.1039/C8PP00034D.
2018
Rimmerman, Dolev, Denis Leshchev, Darren J. Hsu, Jiyun Hong, Baxter Abraham, Robert Henning, Irina Kosheleva, and Lin X. Chen. 2018. “Probing Cytochrome c Folding Transitions upon Phototriggered Environmental Perturbations Using Time-Resolved X-Ray Scattering.” The Journal of Physical Chemistry B 122 (20): 5218–24. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcb.8b03354.
2017
Rimmerman, Dolev, Denis Leshchev, Darren J. Hsu, Jiyun Hong, Irina Kosheleva, and Lin X. Chen. 2017. “Direct Observation of Insulin Association Dynamics with Time-Resolved X-Ray Scattering.” The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 8 (18): 4413–18. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b01720.
