World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
Ming-Daw Tsai

Ming-Daw Tsai

D-Index & Metrics

Chemistry

D-Index
67
Citations
14103
World Ranking
7017
National Ranking
53

Biology and Biochemistry

D-Index
67
Citations
14792
World Ranking
8273
National Ranking
35

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2014 - Fellow, The World Academy of Sciences
  • 1992 - Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
  • 1983 - Fellow of Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Overview

Ming-Daw Tsai is a researcher affiliated with Academia Sinica in Taiwan, specializing primarily in the field of Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology. Their work spans several subfields, including Molecular Biology, Plant Science, Structural Biology, Genetics, and Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience.

The scientist's research covers a range of topics such as Photosynthetic Processes and Mechanisms, Advanced Electron Microscopy Techniques and Applications, Light effects on plants, Photoreceptor and optogenetics research, Electron and X-Ray Spectroscopy Techniques, RNA modifications and cancer, and Mitochondrial Function and Pathology.

Frequent collaborators in their research include Wen-Jin Wu, Cheng-Han Yang, Hsiang-Yi Wu, Chun-Hsiung Wang, and Meng-Chiao Ho.

Key venues where their work has been published reflect a focus on interdisciplinary and high-impact journals:

  • Nature Communications
  • Nature Metabolism
  • Journal of the American Chemical Society
  • Journal of Visualized Experiments
  • Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

Selected recent papers demonstrate the breadth and depth of their scholarship:

  • Visualizing the DNA repair process by a photolyase at atomic resolution (2023, Science)
  • Serial crystallography captures dynamic control of sequential electron and proton transfer events in a flavoenzyme (2022, Nature Chemistry)
  • Identification of fidelity-governing factors in human recombinases DMC1 and RAD51 from cryo-EM structures (2021, Nature Communications)
  • An ATP-sensitive phosphoketolase regulates carbon fixation in cyanobacteria (2023, Nature Metabolism)
  • Enzymology and Dynamics by Cryogenic Electron Microscopy (2021, Annual Review of Biophysics)

Over the course of their career, Tsai has received several fellowships recognizing their scientific contributions, including Fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in 1983, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1992, and Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences in 2014.

Best Publications

  • Ankyrin repeat: a unique motif mediating protein-protein interactions.

    Junan Li;and Anjali Mahajan;Ming-Daw Tsai ,‡,§,‖

  • Interfacial Enzymology: The Secreted Phospholipase A2-Paradigm

    Otto G. Berg;Michael H. Gelb;Ming-Daw Tsai;Mahendra Kumar Jain

  • Regulatory mechanisms of tumor suppressor P16(INK4A) and their relevance to cancer

    Junan Li;Ming Jye Poi;Ming-Daw Tsai

  • AMP-activated protein kinase functionally phosphorylates endothelial nitric oxide synthase Ser633.

    Zhen Chen;I-Chen Peng;Wei Sun;Mei I. Su

  • Nucleoside monophosphate kinases: structure, mechanism, and substrate specificity.

    Honggao Yan;Ming-Daw Tsai

  • A reexamination of the nucleotide incorporation fidelity of DNA polymerases.

    Alexander K. Showalter;Ming-Daw Tsai

  • DNA Polymerase β: Structure−Fidelity Relationship from Pre-Steady-State Kinetic Analyses of All Possible Correct and Incorrect Base Pairs for Wild Type and R283A Mutant†

    Jinwoo Ahn;Brian G. Werneburg;Ming-Daw Tsai

  • DNA polymerase beta: pre-steady-state kinetic analysis and roles of arginine-283 in catalysis and fidelity.

    Brian G. Werneburg;Jinwoo Ahn;Xuejun Zhong;Robert J. Hondal

  • Watching conformational- and photo-dynamics of single fluorescent proteins in solution

    Randall H. Goldsmith;W. E. Moerner

  • Tumor suppressor p16INK4A: determination of solution structure and analyses of its interaction with cyclin-dependent kinase 4.

    In-Ja L. Byeon;Junan Li;Karen Ericson;Thomas L. Selby

  • Insight into the catalytic mechanism of DNA polymerase beta: structures of intermediate complexes.

    Joseph W. Arndt;Weimin Gong;Xuejun Zhong;Alexander K. Showalter

  • Structure and Function of the Phosphothreonine-Specific FHA Domain

    Anjali Mahajan;Chunhua Yuan;Hyun Lee;Hyun Lee;Eric S.-W. Chen;Eric S.-W. Chen

  • Loss of the Oxidative Stress Sensor NPGPx Compromises GRP78 Chaperone Activity and Induces Systemic Disease

    Pei Chi Wei;Yi Hsuan Hsieh;Yi Hsuan Hsieh;Mei I. Su;Xianzhi Jiang

  • High-throughput identification of compounds targeting influenza RNA-dependent RNA polymerase activity

    Ching-Yao Su;Ting-Jen R. Cheng;Meng-I. Lin;Shi-Yun Wang

  • Mechanism of adenylate kinase: site-directed mutagenesis versus X-ray and NMR.

    Ming Daw Tsai;Honggao Yan

  • Stereochemical course of the transmethylation catalyzed by catechol O-methyltransferase.

    R W Woodard;M D Tsai;H G Floss;P A Crooks

  • DNA polymerase beta: effects of gapped DNA substrates on dNTP specificity, fidelity, processivity and conformational changes.

    Jinwoo Ahn;Vadim S. Kraynov;Xuejun Zhong;Brian G. Werneburg

  • Use of 2-Aminopurine and Tryptophan Fluorescence as Probes in Kinetic Analyses of DNA Polymerase β†

    Christopher A. Dunlap;Ming-Daw Tsai

  • Histone Demethylase RBP2 Promotes Lung Tumorigenesis and Cancer Metastasis

    Yu-Ching Teng;Cheng-Feng Lee;Ying-Shiuan Li;Yi-Ren Chen

  • Identification of Histone Demethylases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

    Shengjiang Tu;Esther M.M. Bulloch;Lanhao Yang;Chen Ren

  • Structure-based combinatorial protein engineering (SCOPE)

    Paul E. O'Maille;Marina Bakhtina;Ming-Daw Tsai

Frequent Co-Authors

Heinz G. Floss
Heinz G. Floss University of Washington
Mahendra Kumar Jain
Mahendra Kumar Jain University of Delaware
Joseph P. Noel
Joseph P. Noel Salk Institute for Biological Studies
John Y.-J. Shyy
John Y.-J. Shyy University of California, San Diego
Charles R. Sanders
Charles R. Sanders Vanderbilt University
Michael H. Gelb
Michael H. Gelb University of Washington
Chi-Huey Wong
Chi-Huey Wong Scripps Research Institute
Michael Hsiao
Michael Hsiao Academia Sinica
Jin-Town Wang
Jin-Town Wang National Taiwan University
Angela M. Gronenborn
Angela M. Gronenborn University of Pittsburgh

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