Welcome to the Fei SUN Group
Biological interfaces are the critical regions where living organisms exchange matter, transmit signals, and convert energy with their environment (including other living systems). The dynamic complexity of their structure and function profoundly shapes life processes while offering abundant design inspiration and research paradigms for intelligent materials and tools.
The Sun group explores how to understand, control, and reconstruct biological interfaces across multiple scales (i.e., tissue, cellular, and/or subcellular) from an engineering perspective. On one hand, the diverse and unique phenomena at these interfaces—often chemical in nature—inspire novel approaches to biomolecular engineering (e.g., protein topology engineering) and materials development (e.g., living materials, smart hydrogels, et al.), paving new avenues for bio-manufacturing. On the other hand, engineered materials and tools built around biological interfaces (such as brain-machine interfaces, intercellular connections, and organelle interactions) provide essential means for elucidating the mechanisms of complex multicellular life phenomena—including developmental regulation, tissue regeneration, and neural signal transduction—at tissue, cellular, and/or subcellular scales.
Research Interests Include:
Materials Synthetic Biology, Interface Chemical Biology, Living Materials, Soft Matter, Biological Phase Separation/Transition, Protein Topology Engineering, Directed Evolution, Optogenetics, Intercellular Connection/Communication, Gap Junction, Electrical Synapse, Neuroscience, and Regenerative Medicine.
