Research interests:

My lab aims to explore green solutions of human health-related challenges using plant systems. Plants not only produce most of the oxygen we breathe, but also produce energy-rich and health-beneficial compounds to sustain our lives. 

Many staple crops are rich in energy, but poor in health-beneficial nutrients, such as vitamins. The risk of malnutrition or “hidden hunger” will be high in the population of disadvantaged socioeconomic status. One research focus of the Sun lab is to understand the controlling mechanisms of the synthesis of health-beneficial products such as carotenoids in plants. The plant metabolic pathways are coordinated at different levels: transcriptional, post-translational, and organellar regulations. My lab will employ molecular and genetic methods such as: protein-protein /protein-DNA interaction assays, CRISPR knock-out, multigene stacking to explore this hierarchical regulation. The key regulatory factors will then be used to design genetic engineering tools to improve the nutritional quality of crops. 

Another research area of our group is developing plants as a synthetic platform to produce pharmaceutical proteins with potential applications in disease treatment. Plant expression system has several advantages including short development time, low cost, and simple growth conditions. The further modification to generate human-like post-translational modification will facilitate the production of certain therapeutical proteins in plants.  

If you are interested in knowing more about my research and publications, please check out my lab web page    and Google Scholar site.

 

Courses:

• Fundamentals of Synthetic Biology (BIOL 3330)
• Plant Physiology and Development (BIOL 4767/5767) 
• Biochemistry of Metabolism Lecture (BIOL 4167/5167)
• Synthetic Biology and Bioengineering (BIOL 4677/5677)