Lab of Reproductive Biotechnology
Research Field
Somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), also known as “cloning”, rapidly reprograms the somatic transcriptome; it is an efficient, and the first working means to reprogram a differentiated cell to the totipotent state. The best-known example of cloning is Dolly the sheep. This concept later led to the development of two significant types of stem cells. The first one is the induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), initially developed by the 2012 Nobel Prize winner Shinya Yamanaka. The other one is the ntESCs, embryonic stem cells derived from a cloned blastocyst. When combined with gene and cell therapy technologies, ntESCs offer opportunities to treat genetic disorders, hence called by many as “therapeutic cloning.” Both ntESCs and iPSCs can be patient-specific; therefore, they represent a great promise in regenerative medicine and serve as valuable model systems to study many human diseases with a precision medicine approach.
Professor Sung is an expert in SCNT and among the first to report cloned mice using terminally differentiated postmitotic granulocytes, followed by the efficient derivation of mouse ntESCs. Her team also cloned cattle and rabbits before. She excels in embryonic technologies, such as SCNT, pronuclear microinjection, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, blastocyst injection, cryopreservation of oocyte and embryo, and PSC technology. Her research interests are embryology, developmental biology, stem cell biology, and developing novel animal models to study human diseases, including infertility and xenotransplantation. She is also applying these modern tools to save endangered animals.
The primary research interest of Professor Sung's lab is to understand the process of nuclear reprogramming by somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT, also called animal cloning). We also study the biology of oogenesis, embryogenesis, and the stemness of embryonic stem cells.
- Reprogramming and differentiation of somatic cells by SCNT
- Establish a frozen oocyte bank for infertility treatment
- Cloned telomerase mutant mice as a model for human aging and telomere disease
2023 Award for Teaching Excellence, College of Bioresources and Agriculture, National Taiwan University
2023 Academic Research Performance Incentives, Research Excellence Award, National Taiwan University
2022 Academic Research Performance Incentives, Research Excellence Award, National Taiwan University
2021 Academic Research Performance Incentives, Research Excellence Award, National Taiwan University
2020 Award for Teaching Excellence in English, National Taiwan University
2020 Academic Research Performance Incentives, Research Excellence Award, National Taiwan University
2019 Academic Research Performance Incentives, Research Excellence Award, National Taiwan University
2018 Award for Teaching Excellence, National Taiwan University
2017 FutureTech Demo and Breakthrough Award and the Best Popularity Award, Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan
2017 Award for Teaching Excellence, National Taiwan University
2016 Academic Research Performance Incentives, Research Excellence Award, National Taiwan University
2015 Academic Research Performance Incentives, Research Excellence Award, National Taiwan University
2014 Award for Teaching Excellence, National Taiwan University
2014 Academic Research Performance Incentives, Research Excellence Award, National Taiwan University
2013 Academic Research Performance Incentives, Research Excellence Award, National Taiwan University
2011 Academic Research Performance Incentives, Research Excellence Award, National Taiwan University
2011 Award for Teaching Excellence, National Taiwan University
2006 First Place- CANR Graduate Student Research Forum, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA
1998 Young Scientist Paper Presentation Contest Award, Offered by the Chinese Society of Animal Science. Taiwan, R. O. C.
1996 Winner of the Prof. F. K. Koh´s Memorial Foundation Scholarship, Offered by the Prof. F. K. Koh´s Memorial Foundation. Taiwan, R. O. C.
2006 Ph. D. Department of Animal Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA, Graduated in Nov 2006.
1999 M.S. Department of Animal Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, R. O. C.
1996 B. S. Department of Animal Science, National PingTung Polytechnic Institute, PingTung, Taiwan, R. O. C.