Steve S.J. Santoso
Room 627
Whitehead Institute
9 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142
(617) 258-6026
Hi there! My name is Steve Santoso and I am a second year graduate student at M.I.T 's Biology Department. I graduated in May 1998 from U.C. Berkeley where I worked in Professor Sung-Hou Kim's laboratory doing molecular biology and crystallization. Since I enjoyed that so much, I decided to join Dr. Jamie Cate's lab at the Whitehead Institute. We're working on the structural basis of protein synthesis (i.e. trying to solve the crystal structure of the ribosome). It's definitely a long-term project, but it should be pretty fun! You can check out my "Research" section if you want.
I was born twenty four years ago in Jakarta, Indonesia. I'm actually Chinese Indonesian, and so "Santoso" isn't my family's real name, but since legally that's what it is, it's there (unfortunately) to stay. My real surname is "Yang", written below in traditional character. Yang
I'm slowly learning Mandarin...I don't think I'll be able to be fluent, but hey...who cares?. Anyway, I have a genius older brother who works at UCSF and is already engaged. My parents are still in Indonesia making money and dodging riots. I have 50 first cousins, which I think is just out of this world (safe to say I had two amazing grandmothers). You can read more about them in the "Family" section.

OK...back to myself. Here I am in the world's most prestigious technical school, where the slope of the learning curve is infinite...getting my ass kicked! Just kidding...I'm having a blast here, although I've never encountered so many intelligent people in my life.
I play the piano, although I'm musically talentless. Playing bad Beethoven and Chopin has its therapeutic value. I'm not much of a sportsman, although I do lift weights regularly.. Summer's coming, and its time to BULK-UP!

OK...that's all for now. Hey, things are kinda lonely here at the Institute, so if you happen to drop by, please e-mail me! =o)

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