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Shixiang Sun, Ph.D.

Research Assistant Professor

 

Email: shixiang.sun at einsteinmed.edu

 

 

Education and Training

 

Postdoctoral Albert Einstein College of Medicine, USA, 2017 - 2022

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Ph.D. Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, 2013-2017

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M.S. Beijing Institute of Genomics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, 2010-2013

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B.S. China University of Petroleum, Dongying, China, 2005-2009


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Sun_Shixiang_PhD_Portraits_X_2026_1_21_3.jpg

Research interests

 

Dr. Sun' research in this laboratory is focused on the computational analysis of various types of genome instability from the single cell, whole genome sequence, and transcriptome sequence information in normal tissues of human in relation to aging.

 

Publications:

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  1. Shea A, Sun S, Kennedy J, Zhang L, Vijg J, Dong X. SomaMutDB 2.0: A comprehensive database for exploring somatic mutations and their functional impact in normal human tissues. Nucleic Acids Res. 2026;54(D1):D1291-D300.

  2. Fan-Huang G, Schmidt EL, Lee M, Sun S, Boull C, Maguiness SM, et al. High cancer-associated mutational burden in normal blood of xeroderma pigmentosum group C, but not groups A, D, or F. Blood Neoplasia. 2026:100209.

  3. Tarpada SP, Heid J, Sun S, Lee M, Maslov A, Vijg J, et al. Blood and bone-derived DNA methylation ages predict mortality after geriatric hip fracture: a pilot study. JBJS. 2025;107(4):381-8.

  4. Sun S, Sproviero D, Payán-Gómez C, Hoeijmakers JH, Maslov AY, Mastroberardino PG, et al. RNA sequence analysis of somatic mutations in aging and Parkinson’s Disease. bioRxiv. 2025:2025.03. 26.645360.

  5. Sproviero D, Payán-Gómez C, Milanese C, Barnhoorn S, Sun S, Gyenis A, et al. A blood-based DNA damage signature in patients with Parkinson’s disease is associated with disease progression. Nature Aging. 2025;5(9):1844-61.

  6. Ren P, Zheng C, Pang Y, Qiang Y, Sun S, Wang Q, et al. Single-cell analysis of the somatic mutational landscape in human chondrocytes during aging and in osteoarthritis. Nature Aging. 2025:1-15.

  7. Montagna C, Albert O, Sun S, Lin J-R, Lee M, Chan C, et al. The Somatic Aneuploidy Landscape of Adult Glia Reveals 16p as a Hotspot and Differentiates Mosaicism in Normal Glia from Chromosomal Instability in Glioblastoma. 2025.

  8. Lu Z, Zheng C, Ren P, Gao J, Zhang C, Vijg J, et al. Comprehensive Bioinformatics Analysis Reveals Associations between the DNA Damage Response and Osteoarthritis. Gerontology. 2025;71(10):885-98.

  9. Firsanov D, Zacher M, Tian X, Sformo TL, Zhao Y, Tombline G, et al. Evidence for improved DNA repair in the long-lived bowhead whale. Nature. 2025;648(8094):717-25.

  10. Fan-Huang G, Schmidt EL, Lee M, Sun S, Boull C, Maguiness SM, et al. Uniquely high spontaneous mutational load in blood cells of XP-C patients. bioRxiv. 2025.

  11. Cutler R, Heid J, Sun S, Lee M, Maslov AY, Zhang L, et al. Negative selection allows human primary fibroblasts to tolerate high somatic mutation loads induced by N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea. bioRxiv. 2025:2024.04. 07.588286.

  12. Albert O, Sun S, Lin J-R, Lee M, Chan C, Maslov AY, et al. Chromosomal Aneuploidy in Normal, Non-Neuronal Brain Nuclei of Glioblastoma Patients is Not a Cancer Driver. bioRxiv. 2025:2025.04. 22.649812.

  13. Sproviero D, Payán-Gómez C, Milanese C, Sun S, Gyenis A, Delia D, et al. Parkinson’s disease patients display a DNA damage signature in blood that is predictive of disease progression. medRxiv. 2024:2024.03. 25.24301713.

  14. Heid J, Huang Z, Lee M, Makhortov S, Pan E, Montagna C, et al. Detection of genome structural variation in normal cells and tissues by single molecule sequencing. BioRxiv. 2024:2024.08. 08.607188.

  15. Firsanov D, Zacher M, Tian X, Sformo TL, Zhao Y, Tombline G, et al. DNA repair and anti-cancer mechanisms in the long-lived bowhead whale. BioRxiv. 2024:2023.05. 07.539748.

  16. Sun S, Sproviero D, Payán-Gómez C, Huang Z, Hoeijmakers JH, Maslov AY, et al. Reduced frequency of clonal hematopoiesis in Parkinson’s disease patients. bioRxiv. 2023:2023.05. 04.539397.

  17. Schneider BK, Sun S, Lee M, Li W, Skvir N, Neretti N, et al. Expression of retrotransposons contributes to aging in Drosophila. Genetics. 2023;224(2):iyad073.

  18. Scanlon LR, Gabor L, Khouri O, Ahmad S, Levy E, Buckley E, et al. Immunotherapy for ovarian cancer is improved by tumor-targeted delivery of a neoantigen surrogate. bioRxiv. 2023:2023.10. 11.561944.

  19. Albert O, Sun S, Huttner A, Zhang Z, Suh Y, Campisi J, et al. Chromosome instability and aneuploidy in the mammalian brain. Chromosome Res. 2023;31(4):32.

  20. Sun S, Wang Y, Maslov AY, Dong X, Vijg J. SomaMutDB: a database of somatic mutations in normal human tissues. Nucleic Acids Res. 2022;50(D1):D1100-D8.

  21. Sun S, Brazhnik K, Lee M, Maslov AY, Zhang Y, Huang Z, et al. Single-cell analysis of somatic mutation burden in mammary epithelial cells of pathogenic BRCA1/2 mutation carriers. The Journal of Clinical Investigation. 2022;132(5).

  22. Maslov AY, Makhortov S, Sun S, Heid J, Dong X, Lee M, et al. Single-molecule, quantitative detection of low-abundance somatic mutations by high-throughput sequencing. Science Advances. 2022;8(14):eabm3259.

  23. Huang Z, Sun S, Lee M, Maslov AY, Shi M, Waldman S, et al. Single-cell analysis of somatic mutations in human bronchial epithelial cells in relation to aging and smoking. Nat Genet. 2022;54(4):492-8.

  24. Dong X, Sun S, Zhang L, Kim S, Tu Z, Montagna C, et al. Age‐related telomere attrition causes aberrant gene expression in sub‐telomeric regions. Aging Cell. 2021;20(6):e13357.

  25. Sun S, White RR, Fischer KE, Zhang Z, Austad SN, Vijg J. Inducible aging in Hydra oligactis implicates sexual reproduction, loss of stem cells, and genome maintenance as major pathways. GeroScience. 2020;42(4):1119-32.

  26. Brazhnik K, Sun S, Alani O, Kinkhabwala M, Wolkoff AW, Maslov AY, et al. Single-cell analysis reveals different age-related somatic mutation profiles between stem and differentiated cells in human liver. Science advances. 2020;6(5):eaax2659.

  27. Li R, Liang F, Li M, Zou D, Sun S, Zhao Y, et al. MethBank 3.0: a database of DNA methylomes across a variety of species. Nucleic Acids Res. 2018;46(D1):D288-D95.

  28. Members BDC. Database resources of the BIG data center in 2018. Nucleic Acids Res. 2018;46(D1):D14-D20.

  29. Su W, Li X, Chen M, Dai W, Sun S, Wang S, et al. Synonymous codon usage analysis of hand, foot and mouth disease viruses: a comparative study on coxsackievirus A6, A10, A16, and enterovirus 71 from 2008 to 2015. Infect Genet Evol. 2017;53:212-7.

  30. Members BDC. The BIG Data Center: from deposition to integration to translation. Nucleic Acids Res. 2017;45(D1):D18-D24.

  31. Wang G, Sun S, Zhang Z. Randomness in sequence evolution increases over time. PLoS One. 2016;11(5):e0155935.

  32. Sun S, Xiao J, Zhang H, Zhang Z. Pangenome evidence for higher codon usage bias and stronger translational selection in core genes of Escherichia coli. Front Microbiol. 2016;7:1180.

  33. Zou D, Sun S, Li R, Liu J, Zhang J, Zhang Z. MethBank: a database integrating next-generation sequencing single-base-resolution DNA methylation programming data. Nucleic Acids Res. 2015;43(D1):D54-D8.

  34. Wang W, Feng B, Xiao J, Xia Z, Zhou X, Li P, et al. Cassava genome from a wild ancestor to cultivated varieties. Nature communications. 2014;5(1):5110.

  35. Zhao Y, Wu J, Yang J, Sun S, Xiao J, Yu J. PGAP: pan-genomes analysis pipeline. Bioinformatics. 2012;28(3):416-8.

 

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