Stella Sun
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Phone 412-383-5907
Fax 412-648-9008

University of Pittsburgh
2050 Biomedical Science Tower 3

 

Stella Sun
 
Stella Y. Sun’s research is focused on addressing important scientific and biomedical problems, particularly in pathogen-host interaction from structural and molecular cell biology perspectives. My lab is dedicated to the experimental and computational application of cryo-ET for structural determination of biological macromolecules or biological machinery in single-celled parasites that cause important human diseases. I am particularly interested in understanding the molecules transportation, organelle biogenesis and their regulations in the invasion process of the malaria parasites (or related apicomplexan parasites) and the migration of Trypanosoma brucei that causes African sleeping sickness in humans and Nagano in cattle. Our research is to visualize the organization of cellular structures and their coordination in 3D spatial organization through a multi-scale imaging platform ranging from microns to sub-nanometers, to elucidate the molecular and structure functions that drive cell migration or invasion. Crucially, the novel cryo-ET analysis developed will also broadly enable the study of molecular machines in other complex biological contexts.  

Visit Stella's lab website


Education & Training

Undergraduate

Wuhan University, Wuhan, China
B.S. Life Sciences, 2004-2008

Postgraduate

Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States
Research Scientist 2017-2021

Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, United States
Postdoc Associate 2016-2017

Mechanobiology Institute, Singapore
Research Fellow 2014-2016

National University of Singapore, Singapore
Ph.D., in Biological Sciences 2008-2014



Selected Awards and Honors

2020 Stanford ChEM-H Seed Grant
2014 Young Scientist Travel Award, Kuo Symposium on 3D Cryo-EM Molecular Imaging
2011 Blackwell Poster Awards, 22nd Annual Molecular Parasitology Meeting



Representative Publications

Sun SY, Segev-Zarko L-A, Chen M, Pintilie GD, Schmid MF, Ludtke SJ, Boothroyd JC, Chiu W. Cryo-ET of Toxoplasma parasites gives subnanometer insight into tubulin-based structures [Internet]. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2022. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2111661119 

 

Tierney W, Vicino I, Sun S, Chiu W, Engel E, Taylor M, Hogue I. Methods and Applications of Campenot Trichamber Neuronal Cultures for the Study of Neuroinvasive Viruses [Internet]. 2021. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.20944/preprints202105.0098.v1 

 

Chen M, Bell JM, Shi X, Sun SY, Wang Z, Ludtke SJ. A complete data processing workflow for cryo-ET and subtomogram averaging. Nat Methods. 2019 Nov;16(11):1161–1168. PMCID: PMC6858567 

 

Sun SY, Kaelber JT, Chen M, Dong X, Nematbakhsh Y, Shi J, Dougherty M, Lim CT, Schmid MF, Chiu W, He CY. Flagellum couples cell shape to motility in. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Jun 26;115(26):E5916–E5925. PMCID: PMC6042131 

 

Jin J, Galaz-Montoya JG, Sherman MB, Sun SY, Goldsmith CS, O’Toole ET, Ackerman L, Carlson L-A, Weaver SC, Chiu W, Simmons G. Neutralizing Antibodies Inhibit Chikungunya Virus Budding at the Plasma Membrane. Cell Host Microbe. 2018 Sep 12;24(3):417–428.e5. PMCID: PMC6137268 

 

Chen M, Dai W, Sun SY, Jonasch D, He CY, Schmid MF, Chiu W, Ludtke SJ. Convolutional neural networks for automated annotation of cellular cryo-electron tomograms. Nat Methods. 2017 Oct;14(10):983–985. PMCID: PMC5623144

 

Luengo I, Darrow MC, Spink MC, Sun Y, Dai W, He CY, Chiu W, Pridmore T, Ashton AW, Duke EMH, Basham M, French AP. SuRVoS: Super-Region Volume Segmentation workbench. J Struct Biol. 2017 Apr;198(1):43–53. PMCID: PMC5405849

 

Li C, Zhang Y, Yang Q, Ye F, Sun SY, Chen ES, Liou Y-C. NuSAP modulates the dynamics of kinetochore microtubules by attenuating MCAK depolymerisation activity. Sci Rep. 2016 Jan 6;6:18773. PMCID: PMC4702128

 

Sun SY, Wang C, Yuan YA, He CY. An intracellular membrane junction consisting of flagellum adhesion glycoproteins links flagellum biogenesis to cell morphogenesis in Trypanosoma brucei. J Cell Sci. 2013 Jan 15;126(Pt 2):520–531. PMID: 23178943

 

Li F-J, Shen Q, Wang C, Sun Y, Yuan AY, He CY. A role of autophagy in Trypanosoma brucei cell death. Cell Microbiol. 2012 Aug;14(8):1242–1256. PMID: 22463696

 

Zhou Q, Liu B, Sun Y, He CY. A coiled-coil- and C2-domain-containing protein is required for FAZ assembly and cell morphology in Trypanosoma brucei. J Cell Sci. 2011 Nov 15;124(Pt 22):3848–3858. PMID: 22114307

  

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