Jerry Sun

Program: Immunology

Current advisor: Kodi S. Ravichandran, PhD

Undergraduate university: Stanford University, 2021

Enrollment year: 2021

Research summary
Metabolic consequences of efferocytosis in macrophages

I work in the lab of Dr. Kodi Ravichandran to study the clearance of apoptotic cells, a process known as efferocytosis. Efferocytosis is required during development and for physiologic tissue homeostasis; however, deficiencies in efferocytosis is observed in numerous disease contexts. After each round of efferocytosis, how phagocytes handle the metabolites derived from the apoptotic cells in order to return homeostasis is incompletely known. I am studying the detection and processing of these metabolites by phagocytes, and how this signaling allows phagocytes to continuously engulf apoptotic cells.

Graduate publications
Tufan T, Comertpay G, Villani A, Nelson GM, Terekhova M, Kelley S, Zakharov P, Ellison RM, Shpynov O, Raymond M, Sun J, Chen Y, Bockelmann E, Stremska M, Peterson LW, Boeckaerts L, Goldman SR, Etchegaray JI, Artyomov MN, Peri F, Ravichandran KS. 2024 Rapid unleashing of macrophage efferocytic capacity via transcriptional pause release. Nature, 28(8007):408-15. PMCID:

Mazzitelli JA, Smyth LCD, Cross KA, Dykstra T, Sun J, Du S, Mamuladze T, Smirnov I, Rustenhoven J, Kipnis J. 2022 Cerebrospinal fluid regulates skull bone marrow niches via direct access through dural channels. Nat Neurosci, 25(5):555-60. PMCID: PMC9081158