Our Team

Wei Sun, Ph.D. (Principal Investigator)

I am a biochemist interested in RNA biology, gene regulation, and biomolecular engineering. I obtained my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China) and pursued my Ph.D. at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin (Germany), where I studied RNA diversity and gene regulation in Prof. Wei Chen’s laboratory. I then moved to San Francisco, CA (USA), to join Prof. Lei Wang’s laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco, where I developed Genetically Encoded Chemical Crosslinking for RNA (GECX-RNA). I joined the Department of Biochemistry at Virginia Tech as an Assistant Professor in August 2022.

My laboratory combines biochemistry, RNA biology, chemical biology, and computational approaches to understand gene regulation and engineer proteins and RNA for biological applications.

Members

Pabina Pokharel

Ph.D. Student - Biochemistry

Junxing (Geoffrey) Chen

Ph.D. Student - Biochemistry

Matt Gilfus

Ph.D. Student - Biochemistry

Lan Lou, Ph.D.

Volunteer Research Scientist

Abagail Bochiaro

Undergraduate researcher - Biochemistry

Anshula, Gorti

Undergraduate researcher - Biochemistry

Lab Alumni

Maxwell Brooks (Master’s Student | 2022/08–2024/05). Current: Biotechnology industry.

Jinny Sattayaphanichkul (Undergraduate Researcher | 2022/09–2023/12).

Igor Soares Canuto (Undergraduate Researcher | 2023/01–2025/05).

Samuel Kirsch (Undergraduate Researcher | 2023/01–2023/05).

Noah Mitchell (Undergraduate Researcher | 2023/01–2023/12).

Martin Nguyen (Undergraduate Researcher | 2023/01–2023/05).

Kofi Asiedu-Agyei (Undergraduate Researcher | 2023/05–2023/07).

Alexandra Gray (Undergraduate Researcher | 2023/01–2024/05).

Murchana Barua (Undergraduate Researcher | 2023/05–2024/05).

Nikhil Sirivolu (Undergraduate Researcher | 2023/08–2023/12).

Vy Nguyen (Undergraduate Researcher | 2023/08–2024/12).

Emily Doyle (Undergraduate Researcher | 2025/01–2025/12).

Austin Zhang (Undergraduate Researcher | 2023/08–2026/05).

Andrew Lynch (Undergraduate Researcher | 2025/01–2026/05).

Mindolay Fike (Summer Undergraduate Research Trainee | 2024/05–2024/07).

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