New faculty spotlight: Jingjing Sun, PhD

Jingjing Sun, PhD, is a new faculty member at UNMC.

• Name: Jingjing Sun, PhD
• Hometown: Zaozhuang, China
• New title and department at UNMC: Assistant professor, department of pharmaceutical sciences, UNMC College of Pharmacy

Research/professional interests:

• Utilizing interdisciplinary approaches to design and development of nanocarriers for efficient delivery of small molecular agents and/or therapeutic genes (e.g. siRNA, plasmid, miRNA) for the treatment of cancer and other diseases.
• Investigation of the interactions between nanocarrier, therapeutic agents and biological system.
• Development of new strategies to overcome the major barriers in clinical translation of nanomedicines.

How I fell in love with pharmaceutics: My passion for pharmaceutics research grew as I recognized its great potential to transform lives through precise drug delivery. By creating innovative dosage forms, we can tackle numerous challenges associated with both new chemical entities and old drugs, such as water solubility, low bioavailability and off-target toxicity. This allows these compounds to be transformed into safe and effective medications for patients. The continuous innovation in this field and its profound impact on health care drives me forward.

Degrees:

• PhD in polymer chemistry and physics, Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Memberships:

• Controlled Release Society
• American Chemical Society

Three things people may not know about me:

• I like hiking and playing table tennis.
• My most challenging role is not in the lab but at home as a parent to an energetic 3-year-old boy.
• I collect passport and national park stamps.