Dr. Sun was trained as a Biochemist. He graduated from Sichuan University with a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry (His thesis project was on photosynthesis, and his results were published in Science in China). He obtained a Master’s degree in Biochemistry from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Ph.D. in Cancer Photodynamic Therapy (an FDA-approved treatment for wet-AMD and cancer). He began his post-graduate career at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital where he studied in vivo imaging of retinal pigment epithelium. Shortly after, Dr. Sun moved to the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary of Boston where he remained for a number of years and studied the disease mechanism of retinal degeneration in mouse models and gene replacement therapy. He has worked with Dr. Tiansen Li since he began his fellowship at the Berman-Gund Laboratory for the Study of Retinal Degenerations, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Sun has authored 16 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. In April 2010, Xun Sun, Ph.D. moved to the intramural program at the National Eye Institute where his studies focus primarily on mechanism and therapeutic studies of retinal degenerations. He is passionate about his current research, believing that the basic science in vision, genetics and gene transfer technology has progressed to the point to move laboratory research into the clinic and help patients retain or restore vision.

Ophthalmology and Cell Biology