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 developing efficient machine-learned configuration generators, molecular modeling of ligand binding process, and language-based binding pose prediction models.

Education

2020
Northwestern University
Chemistry
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
2015
National Taiwan University
Chemistry
Bachelor of Science (B.S.)

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.