Life, career, and structural biology

As a Chinese born and raised in central China, I came to the United States for graduate education in 1990. Eighteen years later, I resigned my tenured faculty position at Princeton University and returned to my alma mater Tsinghua University. In this review, I share my experiences and reflections as a graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow, and an independent scientist in both Princeton and Beijing. Much focus is given to my research effort in the field of programmed cell death (also known as apoptosis). Systematic structural biology, which combines x-ray crystallography with other biochemical and biophysical methods, has led to comprehensive understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms that govern the initiation, execution, and regulation of apoptosis. (invited comment)