AWARDEE OF MEDICAL SCIENCES AND MATERIA MEDICA PRIZE

SUN FENGYAN

Prof. Sun Fengyan was born in Shanghai in December 1953. She graduated from Shanghai First Medical College in 1976 and received her Ph.D. degree in the Department of Neurobiology of Shanghai Medical University in 1987. She was awarded by International Forgarty Center of National Institute of Health, USA, in 1990 and worked in the Research Institute for the Neuroscience in Georgetown University. In 1994 , she was appointed as professor in the National Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Shanghai Medical University (Now Fudan University), served as the vice director (1995-1999) and director (1999-present) of this laboratory, and chair of the Department of Neurobiology (1999-present). Prof. Sun was awarded National Distinguished Young Scientists Awards in 1998 and elected as ChangKong Scholar in 1999.
In the middle of 1980s, Prof Sun Feng yan engaged in opiate receptors on the peripheral blood vessels. She was the first to report PCP/Sigma and Kappa opiate receptors binding sites at the presynaptic of sympathetic nervous terminals, which control the construction of vascular smooth muscles via enhancing or inhibiting the release of norepinephrine from the sympathetic nervous terminals.
In the last decade, Prof. Sun has been researched on the cellular and molecular mechanism of neuronal damage and neuroprotection in the brain following stroke and during aging. She and her colleagues found that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expresses in the neuronal cells besides in the endothelia in the brain. Cerebral ischemia induced the upregulation of neuronal VEGF in the brain, which plays compensatory neuroprotection against ischemic neuronal damage. Further study revealed that VEGF directly and acutely inhibits outward delayed rectifier potassium currents via enhancement of tyrosine residues phosphorylation of kv 1.2 protein and activation of PI-3 kinase pathway, thereby produces its acute neuroprotection. Chronic treatment with VEGF promotes brain repair after stroke. Besides, Prof. Sun revealed that ischemic brain injury induces redistribution of glutamate transports from glia to neuron, which associated with neuronal protective process. She also provided first evidence that melatonin directly inhibits the formation of hydroxyl radicals in the ischemic brain and prevents neuronal oxidative damage.
Prof. Sun is also devoted to settingup and development of technological platform for the research of molecular and cellular neurobiology as technological support for national medical neuroscience. She has published more than 70 papers (including 49 papers in the SCI journal), which have been cited more than 250 times. Owing to her achievements, Dr. Sun had been awarded the Second Prizes of Science and Technology Progress Award of the Ministry of Health and Department of Education of China and the First place of Medical Science of Shanghai.