Dr. Jim Sun has officially joined the UBC Department of Microbiology and Immunology as an Assistant Professor. With a research focus on tuberculosis pathogenesis, he will also be part of the new PrePARE (Prepare for Pandemics through Advanced Research in Evolution) research cluster directed by Drs. Kayla King and Selena Sagan.
We are excited to welcome Dr. Sun to our department and look forward to sharing his research with you.
Q: What is your lab’s main research focus?
Jim Sun (JS): My first exposure to research was in the field of tuberculosis (TB) pathogenesis and have since developed a passion to study this deadly disease that many in the privileged world think has been eradicated. This cannot be further from the truth as TB remains the leading cause of infectious-disease related deaths globally, and high rates persist among the Indigenous population in Canada. The bacteria that cause TB has evolved in humans for millennia and provides a unique opportunity to study the tug of war between the pathogen and the host immune response. My lab’s research is focused on understanding how the TB bacteria disables and reprograms the human immune system for its intracellular survival. Along the way, we are also interested in the fundamental understanding of innate immune responses to bacterial pathogens, with the long-term goal of developing translational approaches and drugs to combat infectious diseases.
