Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the International Eurasian Academy of Sciences
Professor Sun is the Research Professor of Biology. He joined the University in 1995 and was Chair of the Department of Biology from 1996 to 2004 as well as the Founding Director of the Molecular Biotechnology Programme from 1998 to 1999. He has also been the Director/Coordinator of the UGC-AoE Centre for Plant and Agricultural Biotechnology (former as Plant and Fungal Biotechnology Centre) since 2000, Director of Institute of Plant Molecular Biology and Agricultural Biotechnology since 2006, Director of State Key Lab of Agrobiotechnology (CUHK) since 2008, and Master of S. H. Ho College in 2009.
Professor Sun's research interests encompass a number of areas such as plant gene isolation, characterization, transfer, expression, and regulation; plant bioreactors; as well as rice quality improvement and functional genomics. Professor Sun is credited as the scientist who first cloned a plant gene, discovered plant gene intervening sequences, and enhanced an essential amino acid in plant through biotechnological approach.