Tai-Chi Lee

Tai-Chi Lee completed his undergraduate education with a major in Botany at National Taiwan University. He received his M.S. degree in Microbiology and Immunology from the National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan, where he was involved in research on cytokine regulation of human immunity.

Dr. Lee earned his Ph.D. in Life Science, in 2010, from National Defense Medical Center (NDMC) in Taiwan, where his studies focused on molecular virology, especially in the aspects of host-virus interactions with the Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) model and flaviviruses replication using a reverse genetics approach. Following graduation, he worked at Kaohsiung Medical University as a postdoctoral fellow under the supervision of professor Suh-Hang Juo, with whom he investigated the epigenetic mechanism as well as the roles of microRNAs in pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.

Dr. Lee accepted an opportunity to join NREL as a postdoctoral researcher in June of 2011, which is also under the support of the Dragon-gate program of National Science Council (NSC) in Taiwan. His current research interests involve in exploring glycerol-based refinery and the potential of utilizing pentose sugar as carbon source via metabolic engineering of cyanobacteria species for production of valuable bioindustrial compounds, including biofuels and other commodity chemicals.