Yizhi Jane Tao

Yizhi Jane Tao is a Chinese biochemist, structural biologist, and professor of biochemistry and cell biology at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Professor Tao led a team of researchers to be the first to map the structure of the influenza A virus nucleoprotein to an atomic level, a feat which circulated widely in the popular press. She was named among the top ten most influential Chinese of 2006 by a consortium of China's leading media outlets including Phoenix Satellite Television, China News Service, Asia Newsweek, and World Journal.

All negative-sense RNA viruses encode a nucleoprotein that surrounds the virus and allows for replication. Tao discovered that the nucleoprotein for influenza A has a distinctive loop that is necessary for the viral genome to be organized into its double-helix hairpin structure. Tao then compared the amino acid sequences of different influenza viruses and found that the nucleoprotein loop she identified is conserved among influenza viruses. Since then, Tao has also solved the structure of a capsid protein coat for a double-stranded fungal RNA virus. Provided by Wikipedia