Simou Sun
Stony Brook University, NY·Biophysics
Cells can send messages without touching each other. They release tiny packages called extracellular particles, which carry fats, proteins, genetic material and metabolites that reflect the sending cell's state.
- Fields
Biophysics
Biochemistry
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
extracellular particles
extracellular vesicles
exosomes
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Feb 2031
What they work on
- Determine how signals inside a donor cell are translated into the mix of extracellular particles it releases, analyzing particle subtypes one by one with quantitative fluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy.
- Investigate how extracellular particles cross physical barriers between cells to reach recipient cells, using engineered biointerfaces, controlled surfaces that mimic where molecules and cells meet.
- Uncover how recipient cells interpret the varied profiles of incoming extracellular particles, combining single-particle imaging with molecular biology techniques.
More about the research
These particles travel to nearby or distant cells and pass along those signals. This kind of signaling helps keep the body balanced and also drives disease, especially in the immune system, the brain and tumors. Researchers also hope to use the particles to deliver drugs and to detect disease from body fluids. But the particles are highly varied, from 30 to 1,000 nanometers across and with very different contents, so it is unclear how cells control which particles they send and how signals stay specific.
Why it matters
Extracellular particles play roles in diseases ranging from neurodevelopmental disorders to cancers. Learning how cells control and interpret these particles could improve the specificity and sensitivity of particle-based diagnostic tests and drug delivery tools. The new single-particle methods could also help researchers study synaptic vesicles and lipoproteins.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Emanuele Cocucci
Ohio State University, OH·Biology
Perform an unbiased calibration of how the number of circulating extracellular vesicles relates to their cells of origin, using enCD63, an engineered version of the vesicle protein CD63, expressed in specific cells of genetically engineered mice.
Michelle Knowles
University of Denver, CO·Biophysics
Map in space and time where phospholipase D (PLD), a lipid-modifying enzyme, is present and where its product phosphatidic acid (PA) forms during exosome secretion, using quantitative fluorescence microscopy in live cells.
Manuel Ascano
Vanderbilt University, TN·Biochemistry
Identify RNA–protein complexes sorted into extracellular vesicles using EV-CLASP, which crosslinks 4SU-labeled RNAs to their binding proteins, combined with biotin-dependent proximity labeling.
The school
Stony Brook University: 32 labs on PI Pages, $319M a year on research, 289 research doctorates a year.
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