I work at Johnson Lab as a postdoc now. I develop model and simulation techniques to study protein assembly processes. If interested, feel free to email me at sikaoguo@gmail.com.

I graduated from School of Physics, Nankai University with a bachelor’s degree and from Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences with a PhD degree, advised by Ping Xie.

📝 Publications

Protein Self-assembly

Gag assembly
gag assembly

Structure of the HIV immature lattice allows for essential lattice remodeling within budded virions
Sikao Guo, Ipsita Saha, Saveez Saffarian, Margaret E Johnson, eLife. 12:e84881 (2023).

Poster

For the immature Gag lattice to become mature, a pair of protease within the lattice need to form a dimer. We studied the mechanism of protease dimerization within the immature lattice.

Clathrin assembly on membrane
clathrin assembly on membrane

Large self-assembled clathrin lattices spontaneously disassemble without sufficient adaptor proteins
Si-Kao Guo, Alexander J Sodt, Margaret E Johnson, PLOS Computational Biology. 18, e1009969 (2022).

Poster

Stochastic self-assembly of clathrin-coated structures on the membrane is essential for transport into cells. These structures can grow large, yet they often fail to form productive versicles, instead disassembling. We studied the mechanisms of stable vs unstable clathrin assembly on membranes.

Molecular motor: Kinesin

Professional Experience

01/2020 - present

Postdoctoral Research, Johns Hopkins University, Department of Biophysics

Research Advisor: Professor Margaret E. Johnson

Educations

09/2014 - 12/2019

Ph.D. in Condensed Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

Research Advisor: Professor Ping Xie

Graduate Thesis Title: “Studying the movement mechanism of dimer kinesin through theoretical modeling and numerical simulation”

09/2010 - 06/2014

B.S. in Physics, Nankai University, Tianjin, China

Conference Presentations

  • Defects Within the HIV-1 Immature Lattice Support Dynamic Remodeling and Protease Dimerization, Cell Bio 2022, Washington, DC, USA, December 4, 2022.
  • Large Self-assembled Clathrin Lattices Spontaneously Disassemble Without Sufficient Adaptor Proteins, Biophysical Society 66th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA, USA, February 19, 2022.
  • Self-assembled clathrin lattices spontaneously disassemble without sufficient links to the plasma membrane, Stochastic Physics in Biology (Gordon Research Conference), Ventura, CA, USA, October 10, 2021.
  • Modeling Nucleation and Kinetics of Clathrin Assembly by Membrane Localization, Biophysical Society 65th Annual Meeting, Virtual, February 22, 2021.
  • Molecular mechanism of dimeric kinesin, 2018 Annual Summary Report, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, November 25, 2018.
  • A model of processive movement of dimeric kinesin, Year-end Meeting and Exhibition of IOP, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China, January 5, 2018.

Academic Service

  • Reviewer of The Journal of Physical Chemistry, PROTEINS: Structure, Function, and Bioinformatics, PLOS Computational Biology, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Cells, Applied Sciences, Biophysica, Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports, Entropy.

Open-Source Software

  • Developer of a simulator for self-assembly at the cellular scale – NERDSS.
  • Developer of the Python library for setting up models and analyzing output of the reaction-diffusion simulation (https://github.com/mjohn218/io_nerdss), (https://pypi.org/project/ioNERDSS/)
  • Creator and developer of the simulation kit for molecular motor – kinesin(https://github.com/sikaoguo22/dynamic-of-kinesin), (https://github.com/sikaoguo22/dynamic-of-kinesin), (https://github.com/sikaoguo22/kinetic-model-for-kinesin).

Contact

Department of Biophysics, Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD 21218

sikaoguo@gmail.com