Doctor of Philosophy (University of Utah)
Bachelor of Science (The Ohio State University)

Prof. Kim, Sun Jin graduated from The Ohio State University in 2011 with a Bachelor of Science in Pharmaceutical Sciences. Then, Prof. Kim earned her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Utah, followed by postdoctoral researcher training also at the University of Utah in the lab of Professor Shawn C. Owen. During her Ph.D. and postdoctoral studies, she worked on engineering split-luciferase to develop assays for detecting and quantifying different forms of cancer proteins and their interactions. Later, she expanded the applications of split-luciferase technology to monitor antibody levels in clinical samples and to measure immunity. After finishing her postdoctoral training, she worked as a Staff Research Associate III in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). At UCSF, she studied HIV, particularly the effects of substances or combinations of therapies on altering HIV transcription levels or inducing post-treatment controls using various transcriptomics and single-cell sequencing technologies. Her past research experiences have drawn her attention to applying split-protein systems in designing and developing new diagnostics and omics assays. Her future research interests will focus on engineering split-protein systems to utilize them as high-throughput detection and quantification tools that can characterize biomolecules involved in cell biology concerning pathogenic pathways and mechanisms. 

Janssens J, Wedrychowski A, Kim SJ, Isbell C, Hoh R, Pillai S, Henrich T, Deeks SG, Roan N, Lee S, Yukl SA. Longitudinal changes in the transcriptionally active and intact HIV reservoir after starting ART during acute infection. J Virol. Accepted 11/25/2024.
Janssens J, Kim P, Kim SJ, Wedrychowski A, Kadiyala GN, Hunt PW, Deeks SG, Wong JK, Yukl SA. Mechanisms and efficacy of small molecule latency-promoting agents to inhibit HIV reactivation ex vivo. JCI Insight. 2024 Aug 20;9(19):3183084. 
Kadiyala GN, Telwatte S, Wedrychowski A, Janssens J, Kim SJ, Kim P, Deeks S, Wong JK, Yukl SA. Differential susceptibility of cells infected with defective and intact HIV proviruses to killing by obatoclax and other small molecules. AIDS. 2024 Jul 15;38(9):1281-1291.
Beck S, Shin D, Kim SJ, Hedde PN, W Zhao. Digital protein detection in bulk solutions. ACS Omega. 2022 Oct 13;7(42):37714-37723.
Beck S, Nakajima R, Jasinskas A, Abram TJ, Kim SJ, Bigdeli N, Tifrea DF, Hernandez-Davies J, Davies DH, Hedde PN, Felgner PL, Zhao W. A protein microarray-based respiratory viral antigen testing platform for COVID-19 surveillance. Biomedicines. 2022 Sep 9; 10(9), 2238. 
Kim SJ, Yao Z, Marsh MC, Eckert DM, Kay MS, Lyakisheva A, Pasic M, Bansal A, Birnboim C, Jha P, Galipeau Y, Langlois MA, Delgado JC, Elgort MG, Campbell RA, Middleton EA, Stagljar I, Owen SC. Homogeneous surrogate virus neutralization assay to rapidly assess neutralization activity of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies. Nat Commun. 2022 Jul 1; 13(1)3716. 
Kim SJ, Dixon AS, Owen SC. Split-enzyme immunoassay to monitor EGFR-HER2 heterodimerization on cell surfaces. Acta Biomater. 2021 Sep 5; S1742-7061(21)00587-0.
Kim SJ, Dixon AS, Adamovich PC, Robinson PD, Owen SC. Homogeneous immunoassay using a tri-part split-luciferase for rapid quantification of anti-TNF therapeutic antibodies. ACS Sens. 2021 May 28; 6(5):1807-1814.
Yao Z, Drecun L, Aboualizadeh F, Kim SJ, Li Z, Valcourt EJ, Manguiat K, Wood H, Plenderleith S, Yip L, Li X, Zhong Z, Yue FY, Snider J, Tomic J, Drebot MA, McGeer A, Ostrowski M, Mubareka S, Rini J, Owen S, Stagljar I. A homogeneous split-luciferase assay for rapid and sensitive detection of anti-SARS CoV-2 antibodies. Nat. Commun. 2021 Mar 22;12(1):1806.  
Kim SJ, Owen SC. Hyaluronic acid binding to CD44S is indiscriminate of molecular weight. Biochim Biophys Acta Biomembr. 2020 Sep 1;1862(9):183348.
Kim SJ, Hatch ST, Dixon AS, Owen SC. Split-enzyme fragment as a single affinity tag that enables protein expression, purification, and functional assays. Biotechnol Bioeng. 2019 Jul;116(7):1575-1583.
Taurin S, Almomen AA, Pollak T, Kim SJ, Maxwell J, Peterson CM, Owen SC, Janát-Amsbury MM. Thermosensitive hydrogels a versatile concept adapted to vaginal drug delivery. J Drug Target. 2018 Aug;26(7):533-550.
Dixon AS, Kim SJ, Baumgarter BK, Krippner S, Owen SC. A tri-part protein complementation system using antibody-small peptide fusions enables homogeneous immunoassays. Scientific Reports. Sci Rep. 2017 Aug 15;7(1):8186.
Park JW, Kim SJ, Kwag DS, Kim S, Park J, Youn YS, Bae YH, Lee ES. Multifunctional delivery systems for advanced oral uptake of peptide/protein drugs. Curr Pharm Des. 2015;21(22):3097-110.
Kwon JY, Lee KH, Cheon SH, Ryu HY, Kim SJ, Kim DI. Adsorptive loss of secreted recombinant proteins in transgenic rice cell suspension cultures. Plant Cell Reports. 2012 Mar;31(3):551-560.