Kaihsu Tai PhD CChem MRSC

(also known as: Tè Khái-sū, 戴 凱序; pronounced [kʰaɪ˥su˧])

email k@kauha.eu

[ current projects · professional appointment · education · honours · publications · opinions · teaching · activities ]

Current projects

• I am looking for a job in policy development (for example, thinktank) where I can use my scientific knowledge and research skills.
• I am studying for a Postgraduate Certificate in Laws, specializing in European law, through the University of London External System.
• I do pro bono science consulting for the churches, including the Church of Scotland, the Council for World Mission, and the United Reformed Church.

Professional appointment

• Research Associate, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford; supervisor: Mark S. P. Sansom; main projects:
  • Wellcome Trust Heart Physiome Project (2006 to 2009): including the Potassium Channel Database
  • BioSimGrid: a distributed database for biomolecular simulations (2003 to 2006; co-supervisor: Jonathan W. Essex)

Education and qualifications

• Chartered Chemist, Royal Society of Chemistry (2006)
• Doctor of Philosophy (2002) and Master of Science (2000) in Chemistry, University of California, San Diego; dissertation: Simulations of molecules and processes in the synapse (ISBN 0-493-90932-X); research advisor: J. Andrew McCammon, co-mentors: Palmer W. Taylor, Michael J. Holst
• Bachelor of Science with Honor, in Chemistry, California Institute of Technology (1998); Dabney House; research advisor: William A. Goddard III
• Introductory Certificate in Management, University of Oxford and Chartered Management Institute (2007)

Honours

• Prize for Young Chemists, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (2003)
• Teddy G. Traylor Fellowship in the Chemical Sciences (2002)
• Student Travel Grant, Biophysical Society 46th Annual Meeting (2002)
• Predoctoral Fellow, La Jolla Interfaces in Science (now Center for Theoretical Biological Physics), supported by Burroughs Wellcome Fund (2000 to 2002)
• Professor Chen Wen-Chen Memorial Scholarship (1998)
• Dr Yuan Tseh Lee Scholarship (1994)
• Bronze Medal, 26th International Chemistry Olympiad (1994)
• Nominee, OxTALENT IT in Teaching and Learning Awards (2008), for “Poisson–Boltzmann profile for an ion channel”

Publications (peer-reviewed or invited)

• Kaihsu Tai, Phillip J. Stansfeld, Mark S. P. Sansom (2009) Ion-blocking sites of the Kir2.1 channel revealed by multiscale modeling. Biochemistry 48:8758–8763
• Kaihsu Tai, Mark S. P. Sansom (2009) BioSimGrid biomolecular simulation database. Chapter 16 in Handbook of Research on Computational Grid Technologies for Life Sciences, Biomedicine and Healthcare, pages 307–326. Mario Cannataro, editor. Hershey, Pennsylvania: Information Science Reference. ISBN 978-1-60566-374-6
• Kaihsu Tai, Shozeb Haider, Alessandro Grottesi, Mark S. P. Sansom (2009) Ion channel gates: comparative analysis of energy barriers. Eur. Biophys. J. 38:347–354
• Kaihsu Tai, Philip Fowler, Younes Mokrab, Phillip Stansfeld, Mark S. P. Sansom (2008) Molecular modelling and simulation studies of ion channel structures, dynamics and mechanisms. Chapter 12 in Methods in Nano Cell Biology, pages 233–265. Methods in Cell Biology, volume 90. Bhanu P. Jena, editor. San Diego: Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-59749-270-6.
• Philip W. Fowler, Kaihsu Tai, Mark S. P. Sansom (2008) The selectivity of K⁺ ion channels: testing the hypotheses. Biophys. J. 95:5062–5072
• Kaihsu Tai, Marc Baaden, Stuart Murdock, Bing Wu, Muan Hong Ng, Steven Johnston, Richard Boardman, Hans Fangohr, Katherine Cox, Jonathan W. Essex, Mark S. P. Sansom (2007) Three hydrolases and a transferase: comparative analysis of active-site dynamics via the BioSimGrid database. J. Mol. Graph. Model. 25:896–902
• Stuart E. Murdock, Kaihsu Tai, Muan Hong Ng, Steven Johnston, Bing Wu, Hans Fangohr, Charles A. Laughton, Jonathan W. Essex, Mark S. P. Sansom (2006) Quality assurance for biomolecular simulations. J. Chem. Theory Comput. 2:1477–1481
• Muan Hong Ng, Steven Johnston, Bing Wu, Stuart E. Murdock, Kaihsu Tai, Hans Fangohr, Simon J. Cox, Jonathan W. Essex, Mark S. P. Sansom, Paul Jeffreys (2006) BioSimGrid: grid-enabled biomolecular simulation data storage and analysis. Future Gener. Comput. Syst. 22:657–664
• Bing Wu, Kaihsu Tai, Muan Hong Ng, Steven Johnston, Stuart Murdock, Hans Fangohr, Mark S. P. Sansom, Jonathan Essex, Paul Jeffreys, Simon Cox (2005) Towards a grid-enabled biomolecular simulation database. In Proceedings of UK e-Science All Hands Meeting 2005, pages 577–580. Simon J. Cox, David W. Walker, editors. Swindon: EPSRC. ISBN 1-904425-53-4
• Christopher J. Woods, Muan Hong Ng, Steven Johnston, Stuart E. Murdock, Bing Wu, Kaihsu Tai, Hans Fangohr, Paul Jeffreys, Simon Cox, Jeremy G. Frey, Mark S. P. Sansom, Jonathan W. Essex (2005) Grid computing and biomolecular simulation. Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. A 363:2017–2035
• Shiva Amiri, Kaihsu Tai, Oliver Beckstein, Philip C. Biggin, Mark S. P. Sansom (2005) The α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor: molecular modelling, electrostatics, and energetics. Mol. Membr. Biol. 22:151–162
• Andrew Hung, Kaihsu Tai, and Mark Sansom (2005) Molecular dynamics simulation of the M2 helices within the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor transmembrane domain: structure and collective motions. Biophys. J. 88:3321–3333
• Oliver Beckstein, Kaihsu Tai, Mark S. P. Sansom (2004) Not ions alone: barriers to ion permeation in nanopores and channels. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126:14694–14695
• Kaihsu Tai, Stuart Murdock, Bing Wu, Muan Hong Ng, Steven Johnston, Hans Fangohr, Simon J. Cox, Paul Jeffreys, Jonathan W. Essex, Mark S. P. Sansom (2004) BioSimGrid: towards a worldwide repository for biomolecular simulations. Org. Biomol. Chem. 2:3219–3221
• Muan Hong Ng, Steven Johnston, Stuart Murdock, Bing Wu, Kaihsu Tai, Hans Fangohr, Simon Cox, Jonathan W. Essex, Mark Sansom, Paul Jeffreys (2004) Efficient data storage and analysis for generic biomolecular simulation data. In Proceedings of UK e-Science All Hands Meeting 2004, pages 443–450. Simon J. Cox, editor. Swindon: EPSRC. ISBN 1-904425-21-6
• Bing Wu, Matthew Dovey, Kaihsu Tai, Muan Hong Ng, Stuart Murdock, Hans Fangohr, Steven Johnston, Paul Jeffreys, Simon Cox, Jonathan W. Essex, Mark S.P. Sansom (2004) Security and BioSimGrid: a biomolecular simulation database. In Proceedings of the UK Workshop on Grid Security Practice and Experience, pages III-1–III-4. Department of Computer Science Technical Report YCS-2004-380, University of York
• Jennifer M. Bui, Kaihsu Tai, J. Andrew McCammon (2004) Acetylcholinesterase: enhanced fluctuations and alternative routes to the active site in the complex with fasciculin-2. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 126:7198–7205
• Bing Wu, Matthew Dovey, Muan Hong Ng, Kaihsu Tai, Stuart Murdock, Hans Fangohr, Steven Johnston, Paul Jeffreys, Simon Cox, Jonathan Essex and Mark S. P. Sansom (2004) A web/grid portal implementation of BioSimGrid: a biomolecular simulation database. J. Digit. Inf. Manag. 2:74–78
• Bing Wu, Matthew Dovey, Muan Hong Ng, Kaihsu Tai, Stuart Murdock, Paul Jeffreys, Simon Cox, Jonathan Essex and Mark S. P. Sansom (2004) A web/grid portal implementation of BioSimGrid: a biomolecular simulation database. In Proceedings ITCC 2004: International Conference on Information Technology: Coding and Computing, volume 2, pages 50–54. Pradip K. Srimani et al., editors. Los Alamitos, California: IEEE Computer Society. ISBN 0-7695-2108-8
• Kaihsu Tai (2004) Simulations on many scales: the synapse as an example. Pure Appl. Chem. 76:295–302
• Kaihsu Tai (2004) Conformational sampling for the impatient. Biophys. Chem. 107:213–220
• Bing Wu, Kaihsu Tai, Stuart Murdock, Muan Hong Ng, Steven Johnston, Hans Fangohr, Paul Jeffreys, Simon Cox, Jonathan Essex, Mark S. P. Sansom (2003) BioSimGrid: a distributed database for biomolecular simulations. In Proceedings of UK e-Science All Hands Meeting 2003, pages 412–419. Simon J. Cox, editor. Swindon: EPSRC. ISBN 1-904425-11-9
• Jianxin Shi, Kaihsu Tai, J. Andrew McCammon, Palmer Taylor, and David A. Johnson (2003) Nanosecond dynamics of the mouse acetylcholinesterase Cys69-Cys96 Omega loop. J. Biol. Chem. 278:30905–30911
• Kaihsu Tai, Stephen D. Bond, Hugh R. MacMillan, Nathan Andrew Baker, Michael Jay Holst, J. Andrew McCammon (2003) Finite element simulations of acetylcholine diffusion in neuromuscular junctions. Biophys. J. 84:2234–2241
• Hugh R. MacMillan, Mike J. McConnell, Kaihsu Tai (2002) Biological system of analysis of systems mathematics. In Proceedings of WSEAS Conference on Applied Mathematics and Computer Science 2002. Athens: WSEAS Press. ISBN 960-8052-74-9
• Nathan Baker, Kaihsu Tai, Richard Henchman, David Sept, Adrian Elcock, Michael Holst, J. Andrew McCammon (2002) Mathematics and molecular neurobiology. In Computational methods for macromolecules: challenges and applications (Advances in computational methods for macromolecular modeling). Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering, volume 24, pages 31–60. Tamar Schlick, Hin Hark Gan, editors. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 3-540-43756-8
• Kaihsu Tai, Tongye Shen, Richard H. Henchman, Yves Bourne, Pascale Marchot, J. Andrew McCammon (2002) Mechanism of acetylcholinesterase inhibition by fasciculin: a 5-ns molecular dynamics simulation. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 124:6153–6161
• Richard H. Henchman, Kaihsu Tai, Tongye Shen, J. Andrew McCammon (2002) Properties of water molecules in the active site gorge of acetylcholinesterase from computer simulation. Biophys. J. 82:2671–2682
• Tongye Shen, Kaihsu Tai, Richard Henchman, J. Andrew McCammon (2002) Molecular dynamics of acetylcholinesterase. Acc. Chem. Res. 35:332–340
• Kaihsu Tai, Tongye Shen, Ulf Börjesson, Marios Philippopoulos, J. Andrew McCammon (2001) Analysis of a 10-ns molecular dynamics simulation of mouse acetylcholinesterase. Biophys. J. 81:715–724
• T.Y. Shen, Kaihsu Tai, J. Andrew McCammon (2001) Statistical analysis of the fractal gating motions of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. Phys. Rev. E 63:041902

Opinions

• Kaihsu Tai, Sushila Dhall (2010) Two good ideas. Oxford Times 2010-02-04:15
• Kaihsu Tai (2010) The science of Copenhagen (Very quick notes on the Copenhagen summit). Oxford Left Review 1
• Kaihsu Tai (2009) Economics 101. Guardian 2009-12-19:37
• Kaihsu Tai (2009) In response to “mathematical formulæ”. TUGboat 30(1):125
• Judy Chipchase, Kaihsu Tai (2009) Natural means. Oxford Times 2009-05-28
• Kaihsu Tai (2009) Book review: Ten technologies to save the planet by Chris Goodall. IBScientific J. Sci. 4(1):23–24
• Kaihsu Tai, Janet Warren, Sid Phelps (2008) [On Network Rail.] Guardian 2008-07-02:33
• Kaihsu Tai, Andrew Basden (2007) The green philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd (The philosophy of the cosmonomic idea: a green view). In Proceedings of the Second Green Economics Conference: Exploring the complex mesh of social and environmental justice, pages 196–199. Miriam Kennet, Volker Heinemann, editors. Reading: Green Economics Institute. ISBN 978-09554646-3-8
• Kaihsu Tai (2005) Toast to new citizens. Guardian 2005-11-03:35
• Kaihsu Tai (2005) [Against torture.] Guardian 2005-08-12
• Kaihsu Tai (2004) Knowledge is a good base to campaign from. Nature 431:1036
• Kaihsu Tai (2004) In response to “Chinese terms for chemical elements”. Chem. Int. 26(5):15
• Kaihsu Tai (2002) Chang didn’t look too hard. Taipei Times 2002-09-21:8
• Kaihsu Tai (2000) Before putting up that sign. Taipei Times 2000-01-12:8
• Kaihsu Tai (1999) More on compound names. Chem. Eng. News 77(24):4
• Kaihsu Tai et al. (co-founders) Wikipedia Bân-lâm-gú (2003), Ubuntu Bân-lâm-gú (2007), Green Party bloggers home (2008)
• Kaihsu Tai et al. (1997 to 2004) Documents N1593, N2507, N2628, N2699, and N2770 for ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 leading to the inclusion of codepoint U+0358 COMBINING DOT ABOVE RIGHT in Unicode
• Chung-chieh Shan, Kaihsu Tai (1995) 微軟陰謀 (The Microsoft conspiracy: a humanistic approach) [a work of fiction]. Taipei: Informationist. ISBN 957-99640-0-9

Teaching and seminars

• Postgraduate students mentored, University of Oxford: Shiva Amiri (doctoral thesis chapter, 2004); Sarah Rogers (rotation project, 2007: Opening a hydrophobic gate: the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor as an example)
• Practical session (assisting Nathan Baker) on electrostatics calculations (2009) and lecture on organizing biomolecular simulations with BioSimGrid (2006), workshops of the Collaborative Computational Project for Biomolecular Simulation
• Lecture and practical session on electrostatics calculations, Wellcome Trust and Systems Biology Doctoral Training Centre postgraduate course on computational biochemistry. University of Oxford (Michaelmas 2007, Trinity 2009)
• Lecture on electrostatics calculations, Wellcome Trust postgraduate course on computational biochemistry. University of Oxford (Trinity 2005, 2006, 2007)
• Tutor, Biophysical chemistry. University of Oxford (2004 to 2005)
• Lecture, Bioinformatics and computational biochemistry. University of Oxford (Michaelmas 2004)
• Tutor, Mathematics for biochemists. University of Oxford (Michaelmas 2003)
• Teaching assistant, Modeling biological macromolecules. University of California, San Diego (Spring 2000)
• Teaching assistant, Physical chemistry. University of California, San Diego (Winter 1999 and Winter 2000)
• Invited seminars at University of Notre Dame (2005); Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (2002); Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen (2002); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (2001). Informal academic visits to University of Salford (2002), University College Dublin (2006), Stellenbosch University (2007), and University of Auckland (2008)

Activities

• Professional societies:
  • Member, United Kingdom Environmental Law Association (since 2009)
  • Associate, Society, Religion and Technology Project, Church of Scotland (since 2008). Associate, John Ray Initiative (since 2005). Member, Presbyterian Association on Science, Technology and the Christian Faith (1999 to 2002)
  • Member of Common Room, Saint Cross College, Oxford (since 2006)
  • Advisory Member, Green Economics Institute (since 2005)
  • Member, Royal Society of Chemistry (since 2003). Affiliate Member, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (since 1998). Member, American Chemical Society (1998 to 2002). Member, Biophysical Society (2002 to 2009)
  • Member, University and College Union (since 2003). Member, Association of Student Employees, UAW Local 2865 (1998 to 2002)
  • Member, TeX Users Group (since 1997)
• Professional services:
  • Member of Editorial Board, International Journal of Green Economics (since 2005)
  • Member, working group on synthetic biology, Church and Society Council, Church of Scotland (2009)
  • Participant, Mission Education School 4: ‘All Creation Groans: The Eco-Crisis and Sustainable Living – Understanding the Implications for Mission’, Council for World Mission (2009)
  • Research Assistant, Science and transcendence advanced research series: Transcending the boundaries of scientific research – exploring reality and the search to know; principal investigator: Margaret M. Yee (2007 to 2009)
  • Manuscript review: Biophysical Chemistry, Biophysical Journal, Biopolymers, European Biophysics Journal, International Journal of Computational Methods, Journal of Molecular Graphics and Modelling, Journal of Molecular Modeling, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2001 to 2008)
• Citizenship duties and involvement:
  • Electoral agent (2010) for Chris Goodall, prospective parliamentary candidate for the Green Party of England and Wales in the Oxford West and Abingdon constituency
  • Secretary (since 2008) and Deputy Chair (2008 to 2009), conference policy co-ordinator (2005 to 2006), Oxfordshire Green Party. Member, Network of Individual Supporters of the European Green Party (since 2006)
  • Departmental Representative, Royal Society of Chemistry (2004 to 2009)
  • Departmental Representative (2004 to 2009) and ordinary member of the Oxford local association committee (2005 to 2007), University and College Union; member, Joint Consultative Committee between the University of Oxford and the Oxford local association of the University and College Union (2006 to 2007)
  • Eco-Rep, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford (2004 to 2009)
  • Employee member, Oxford University Staff Consultative Forum (2005 to 2006)
  • Secretary, Oxford University Research Staff Society (2005 to 2006)
  • Graduate student representative, Committee on International Education, Academic Senate (San Diego Division), University of California (1999 to 2002)
  • Voting member, transfer admissions committee, California Institute of Technology (1998)
• Other activities:
  • Member, International Young Leaders Network (since 2009)
  • Associate Member, Society of Ordained Scientists (since 2009)
  • Member, Saint Columba’s (United Reformed Church), Oxford (since 2003; as serving Elder 2006 to 2009)
  • Founding member, Faith in Action group: a joint committee of four Oxford city-centre churches (since 2004)
  • Member, Sage: Oxford’s Christian environmental group (since 2004)
  • Member, Midcounties Co-operative Society (since 2003), Westmill Wind Farm Co-operative, Co-operative Group (since 2006), Oxford Fairtrade Co-operative Limited (since 2008), and West Oxford Community Renewables Limited and Low Carbon West Oxford (since 2009); shareholder, Oikocredit (since 2010)
  • Administrator, Wikipedia English (since 2004). Founding member, Wiki UK Limited (Wikimedia UK) (since 2009)
  • Member, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, Ridgeway Partnership (Oxfordshire Learning Disability NHS Trust) (since 2007), NHS Direct Trust, and Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust (since 2008)

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