Liming Sun is now a principal investigator at the Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science (CEMCS), Chinese Academy of Sciences. She also serves as the Secretary-general of Chinese Society for Cell Death Research, and Member of the Council of Shanghai Society for Cell Biology.  

Liming Sun received her B.S. in Beijing Normal University in 2005. In 2009, she completed her PhD training in molecular regulation of olfactory receptors with Dr. Minmin Luo at NIBS, Beijing. She discovered the CO2 receptor Guanylyl Cyclase-D (GCD) in olfactory sensory neurons to guide mice avoid predators (Sun et al., PNAS, 2009; Luo et al., Curr Opin Neurobiol, 2009). She then received her postdoctoral training in cell death with Dr. Xiaodong Wang in UT Southwestern, Dallas. There she (1) discovered MLKL as a key component of necroptosis pathway downstream of RIP3; (2) identified the autophosphorylation site on RIP3 (p-hRIP3-Ser227; p-mRIP3-Ser232), which is required for MLKL recruitment; (3) identified the phosphorylation sites on MLKL that are catalyzed by RIP3 (p-hMLKL-Thr357/Ser358; p-mMLKL-Ser345), which are required for releasing its autoinhibition; (4) screened human MLKL inhibitor NSA, and defined its targeting site on Cys86; (5) developed monoclonal antibodies that specifically recognize p-RIP3 and p-MLKL, which potentially serve as important tools to dissect necroptosis signaling in vivo (Sun et al., Cell, 2012; Wang et al., Mol Cell , 2014; Su et al., Structure, 2014). In March of 2014, she started her lab in CEMCS, Shanghai, focusing on the new programmed cell death ‘necroptosis’. 

Dr. Sun grew up in a historical town of Hebei province in the northern China. And She enjoys painting, ballet, and horse riding.