- BA in Molecular and Cellular Biology, UC Berkeley, May 2016
- PhD in Molecular Medicine, University of Arizona, May 2025
Identification of Novel Regulators of Hematopoiesis and B Lymphopoiesis Using Single-Cell Multiomics
I grew up in Vietnam until the age of 14 when my family moved to the bay area in California. I attended UC Berkeley and studied molecular cell biology. My personal diagnosis with a genetic defect in a copper transporter fueled my interest to pursue a career in medical research. My undergraduate research in Dr. Christopher Chang's lab focused on copper channels and their regulation in zebrafish sleep-wake cycles. After graduation, I moved across the bay and worked as a research associate in Dr. Stephen Floor's lab at UCSF studying DDX3 helicase role in translation. For my PhD, I joined Dr. Deepta Bhattacharya's lab to study pluripotent stem cell development.
Moving to Arizona was a big change for me, but the community of students and faculty here at COM-Tucson have been so welcoming. I have found groups of amazing and supportive friends and mentors whom I can rely on. On another note, COM-Tucson offers amazing opportunities to immerse myself in community-based healthcare. I have been working with the Shubitz family care clinic to offer free health care to underinsured and uninsured patients. In my first year of medical school, I got to travel to Mexico with MexZona, a non-profit organization that offers monthly free family care to the community of Rocky Point, Mexico. Our group consisted of medical students, undergraduates, physicians, nurses and pharmacists served over 100 patients that day. It was honestly the most rewarding medical experience I have ever had.
On my free time, I lift weights, hike on the weekends, build LEGO, and watch a lot of movies, especially horror/thriller. The food scene here in Tucson also has surprised me because of how good everything has been. Please reach out if you need recommendations! Ramen, curry katsu, KBBQ , pho, indian food... you name it!
- MD-PhD Admission Committee (2023-2025)
- MD-PhD Recruitment Committee (2022-2023)
- MD-PhD Student Progress Committee (2021-2022)
- Medical Research Student Association (MSAR) - Co-director (2019-2020)
- Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association (APAMSA) - Treasurer (2019-2020)
- Lin, Y., Kwok S., Hein, A., Thai, B., Alabi, Y., Ostrowski, M., Wu K., Floor, S. RNA molecular recording with an
engineered RNA deaminase. Nature Methods. 20, pages 1887–1899 (2023) - Calviello, L., Venkataramanan, S., Rogowski, K., Wyler, E., Tejura, M., Thai, B., Krol, J., Filipowicz, W., Landthaler, M., Floor, S. DDX3 depletion selectively represses translation of structured mRNAs with complex 5’ UTR. Nucleic Acid Research. 49, 5336-5350 (2019).
- Thai, B., Floor, S. Move over, genomes: Here comes transcriptome engineering. The CRISPR Journal. 1, 216-217 (2018).
- Xiao, T., Ackerman, C., Carroll, E. C., Jia, S., Hoagland, A., Chan, J., Thai, B., Liu, C. S., Isacoff, E. Y., Chang, C. J. Copper regulates rest-activity cycles through the locus coeruleus-norepinephrine system. Nat. Chem. Biol. 14, 655-663 (2018).
- Ackerman, C., Weber P., Xiao, T., Thai, B., Kuo, T., Zhang, E., Pett-Ridge, J., Chang, C. J. Multimodal LA-ICP-MS and nanoSIMS imaging enables copper mapping within photoreceptor megamitochondria in a zebrafish model of Menkes disease. Metallomics. 10, 474-485 (2018).