Across an ocean, finding his dream

In 11th grade, when many high-school students are working on college applications, juggling extracurriculars, and taking multiple AP courses, Suan Tuang was doing the same. But at 16, Tuang was also striving to learn English, settle into a new home in a new country, and help his family navigate the financial straits of joblessness in the midst of the economic crisis. “As a family, we were really struggling,” Tuang says. “We thought maybe we made the wrong decision: How long was this going to last?” Tuang left Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) with his parents, two older sisters, and a younger brother in 2008, just two years before he entered MIT. He came from a rural village, called Tedim, that had few college graduates, and where he lived in a house with intermittent electricity and no running water. But Tuang now expects to graduate from MIT with a chemistry degree in June, and hopes to continue on to an MD/PhD. “Growing up, I knew I wanted to be something different,” Tuang says. “I just didn’t know what that would be.” A new home As Christians in an overwhelmingly Buddhist country and as part of the small Zomi ethnic group, Tuang and his family were a double minority in Myanmar. In 2008, the family decided to migrate to the United States of America in search for a better life and future; some months later, the family boarded a plane, leaving behind the familiar and heading into the unknown. After a few nerve-wracking transits, they landed in Orlando, Fla. Tuang had been studying English on his own for years to supplement his rudimentary language classes in school; in seventh grade, he began going to the local library to study grammar books left behind by British colonialists and to watch old movies in English. But once in the U.S., Tuang found that he struggled to keep up in conversation. ESL classes and hard work helped him improve, and he began to share his story with his ESL teacher, Jacquelyn Gomez, who had lived in Boston. Gomez thought Tuang would be a good fit for MIT, encouraged him to apply, and helped him with his application. Tuang was accepted, and was offered full financial aid — enabling him to attend the Institute. Tuang’s family had never heard of MIT before he applied, and they were skeptical at first. “My parents thought it might be a scam,” Tuang says. “It was just too good to be true.” After visiting for Campus Preview Weekend, his mother was convinced. Tuang entered MIT the following fall. Now, Tuang’s parents have stable jobs, his two sisters are nurses, and his brother is a freshman at Brown University. Tuang has participated in cancer research in two different labs, has been a contributing author on two papers, and dreams of becoming a physician-scientist. Into the lab In his freshman biology class — 7.012 (Introduction to Biology) — Tuang listened closely as Robert Weinberg, the Daniel K. Ludwig and American Cancer Society Professor, explained cancer’s typical disease progression. In a chemistry class during his freshman year — 5.112 (Principles of Chemical Science) — he was intrigued by the explanation given by Richard Schrock, the Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry, of the cancer drug cisplatin. “One thing I heard during freshman year was that at MIT, there’s always someone doing something you’re interested in,” Tuang says. “So I thought I would put that to the test.” Through a Google search, Tuang found Stephen Lippard, the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry, who works on cisplatin. “I told Professor Lippard, ‘I do not have any prior laboratory experience, but I’m really excited and interested in your work,’” Tuang says. Lippard gave Tuang his first chance at research, starting in January of his freshman year. Tuang’s first project involved the synthesis of cisplatin analogs, anticancer drug candidates with the potential to overcome resistance and improve efficacy. Next, he began work on another project at the interface of biological and inorganic chemistry, assisting in the creation of a synthetic model of the active site of an enzyme that converts methane into methanol, a synthetically difficult chemical reaction. This model would ideally perform the same function, but would be much less complex than the natural enzyme. The results of the research were published during Tuang’s junior year in the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry. Through his work with Lippard, Tuang gained confidence in his research abilities. He also discovered a love of figuring out how to use chemical principles to design and make molecules for biological applications. “For me, that’s the beauty of chemistry,” he says. “Whatever you want to make, you can just design and synthesize it.” As an Amgen Scholar the summer after his sophomore year, Tuang began research with Ralph Weissleder, the Thrall Professor of Radiology and Professor of Systems Biology, at Massachusetts General Hospital. There, he helped t