Lab Members

John A. Tainer, Ph.D.
Principal Investigator
Robert A. Welch Chair in Chemistry
Director Structural Biology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Director SIBYLS, Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
CPRIT Scholar
National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator

John Tainer is Director of Structural Biology and Robert Welch Chair in Chemistry at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the top rated and largest cancer center in the United States. He strives to advance MD Anderson as a degree-granting academic institution and its focus on transdisciplinary basic and clinical research innovation to end cancer.

After his Ph.D. in structural biology from Duke University and Damon Runyon Fellowship at Scripps, Dr. Tainer rose to tenured full-Professor at Scripps. He directed the NSF Computational Center for Macromolecular Structure and NIH Program Metalloprotein Structure and Design, helping Scripps gain its leadership in structure and chemistry. At Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, he developed and directed DOE Programs Integrated Diffraction Analysis Technologies (IDAT) and Macromolecular Assemblies Genes and Genomics Integrated Efficiently (MAGGIE) as well as the synchrotron beamline Structurally Integrated Biology for Life Sciences (SIBYLS.) These programs and facilities enabled LBL to become a leading center for dynamic structural measurements. He joined MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2015 where he received a National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award for Mesoscale and Nanoscale Technologies Integrated by Structures for DNA Repair Complexes (MANTIS-DRC) along with a CPRIT Multi-Investigator Award for BRCA Answers from Cancer Interactome Structures (BACIS).

Andrew Arvai, B.S., M.S.
Structural Biology Consultant

Andy received a B.S. in physics from University of California, Berkeley in 1985 and an M.S. in bioengineering from University of California, San Diego in 1989. Andy is an expert in challenging crystallizations including complexes with nucleic acids and proteins. His work in collaboration with Dr. Tainer has resulted in more than 125 structures deposited in the Protein Structure Data Bank.

Zamal Ahmed, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

Zamal received a Ph.D. in cell biology from University of Nottingham, UK in 2002. He was a postdoctoral fellow at University College London focusing on molecular biology and biophysics. Zamal joined MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2011 as an assistant professor in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He then joined the Tainer Laboratory in Molecular and Cellular Oncology in 2015. His interests are in intracellular signal-transduction pathways, specifically protein-protein interactions and post-translational modifications that confer signaling specificity. His research includes the development of allosteric small molecule inhibitor-tools to study protein function and evaluation of their therapeutic potential. His area of expertise combines cell biological and biophysical techniques with cell imaging including fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy and super-resolution nanoscopy to interrogate intracellular signaling pathways.

Albino Bacolla, Ph.D.
Bioinformatics Research Consultant

Albino received his Ph.D. in biology at the University of Turin, Italy in 1976. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1987–1990. Albino joined MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2008 in Carcinogenesis at the Science Park Research Division in Smithville, Texas. He joined the Tainer Lab in 2016 as a Research Investigator focusing on mechanisms of mutagenesis in cancer, bioinformatics and RNA-Seq analyses. Currently, Albino is focusing on large-scale analyses of omics resources relevant to cancer and genome instability.

Todd Link, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist

Todd received his B.A. from Calvin College in 1987 and his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1992. From 1993 to 2003 he was a postdoctoral fellow and research associate at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a visiting professor at Reed College, and an adjunct professor at Portland State University. Todd joined MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2005, joining the Tainer Lab as Senior Research Scientist and supervisor in 2019. His research interests include protein crystallography, high-throughput protein expression and high-throughput biochemical assay design.

Min Liu, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow

Min received a B.S. in biochemistry from China Agricultural University in 2012 and her Ph.D. at the Institute of Biophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2018. She joined the Tainer Laboratory at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2019 as a postdoctoral fellow where she is investigating structural and functional studies on DNA damage repair protein complexes by cryo-electron microscopy.

Michael Longo, Ph.D.
Research Scientist

Michael Longo received a B.S. and M.S. in biological science from California State University, Fullerton in 2008, and a Ph.D. from University of Cambridge Department of Biochemistry in 2016. He joined the Tainer Lab at MD Anderson Cancer Center as a postdoctoral fellow in 2016. He is interested in the structural biology of DNA repair.

Davide Moiani, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist

Davide received an M.S. in industrial chemistry from Universita degli Studi di Parma in Italy in 2004 and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Politecnico di Milano in Italy in 2008. He was a postdoctoral fellow in structural and molecular biology at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California 2008-2013. Davide also has an M.B.A. in finance from California Miramar University, San Diego, 2017. He joined the Tainer Lab at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2016 and focuses on computational chemistry, molecular inhibitor design and drug discovery.

Sarita Namjoshi, B.S., M.S.                                         
Senior Research Assistant

Sarita received an M.S. in biochemistry from University of Western Ontario, Canada in 2006. She joined the MD Anderson Cancer Center as a Research Assistant in 2012, then joined the Tainer Lab in 2016 as Senior Research Assistant providing gene cloning, protein purification and identification, cell based assays and protein-protein interaction study support for cell biology and structural biology research.

Shannon Roberts, B.B.A., B.S.                                   
Research Assistant II

Shannon received a B.B.A. in accounting from Texas A&M University in 1985 and was a CPA in Houston, Texas, and Denver, Colorado, for 13 years. She later received a B.S. in biology from the University of Houston - Victoria in 2012 and joined the Tainer Laboratory at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2015 where she handles all reagent and supplies purchasing and inventory management, provides administrative support where needed, as well as general laboratory management. Shannon also provides research support by prepping, extracting and purifying proteins of interest.

Chi-Lin Tsai, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor

Chi-Lin received a B.S. in chemistry from National Chung Hsing University in 1998 and an M.S. in chemistry from National Taiwan University in 2000. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 2011 from Texas A&M University. From 2011 to 2016, Chi-Lin was a postdoctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California. He joined the Tainer Laboratory at MD Anderson Cancer Center in 2016 to investigate structural and functional elucidation of molecular machines in DNA repair.

Naga Babu Chinnam, B.S.
Graduate Research Assistant

Bob received an M.S. in biotechnology from Bangalore University, India in 2008. He then received an M.S. in biology from East Tennessee State University in 2011. He joined the Tainer Lab in 2016 and is working towards his Ph.D. at the MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Bob’s current research focus is on structure and functional studies of ALKBH3-ASCC complex in DNA and RNA alkylation damage response.

Ahmed Emam, B.S.
Graduate Research Assistant

Ahmed received a B.S. in biotechnology/biomolecular chemistry from Cairo University in 2013 and an M.S. in genetics and epigenetics from the MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 2021. He joined MD Anderson in Genetics in the Wang Laboratory for his M.S. from 2018-2021. Ahmed joined the Tainer Laboratory in 2022 to pursue his Ph.D.

Runze Shen, B.S.
Graduate Research Assistant

Runze received his B.S. in applied bioscience from Zhejiang University, China in 2015. He joined the Tainer Lab in 2016 and is working towards his Ph.D. at the MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Runze is researching the structure and function of the nuclease EEPD1 and its role in DNA damage response.

Chris Brosey, Ph.D.
2016-2022
Senior Scientist, Drug Discovery Team – AbbVie Inc., Chicago, IL

Jerry Houl, Ph.D.
2016-2022 
Senior Research Scientist, MD Anderson Endocrine Neoplasia & HD – Research, Houston, TX

Nitin Kumar, Ph.D.
2020-2021
Scientist, Cue Biopharma, Boston, MA

Aleem Syed, Ph.D.
2016-2021
Research Fellow, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA

Henry Tang, Ph.D.
2019-2020 
Senior Scientist, AbbVie Inc., Chicago, IL

Roopa Thapar, Ph.D.
2015-2020 
Institute Research Scientist, MD Anderson Applied Cancer Science Inst., Houston, TX

Xiaoyan Wang, Ph.D.
2016-2021
Technology Commercialization Specialist, UT Health, Houston, TX

Zu Ye, Ph.D.
2016-2022
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Cancer Hospital, Zhejiang, China

Ruth Barros De Paula
2019-2021
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, TX