Li Sun
Founder of Shennon Biotechnologies
Li Sun
Founder of Shennon Biotechnologies
San Francisco, California
Overview
Work Experience
Founder/CEO
2021 - Current
Developing single cell platforms to unlock a key bottleneck in immunotherapy, enabling curative treatments.
Partner
2019 - 2021
Focus on technology innovations for both industrial and enterprise applications, covering the latest innovations that solve the world's most critical problems, including sustainability, connectivity, education, healthcare, energy and food production, as well as technology platforms such as AI, big data, and more efficient computational technologies etc.
Investor and Board Observer
2017 - 2019
Research of the food tech space led to the seafood category and the investment in Forever Oceans, a robotic fish farming company that aims to feed the world with sustainable, organic and traceable seafood.
Investor and Board Observer
2016 - 2019
3D metal printing on the industrial level. It not only expedites the making of production parts, but also enables parts that were once impossible.
Senior Associate
2016 - 2019
Co-led the investments in Bot.life (acquired by Apple, 3x in 6 months) and Forever Oceans (fully automated sustainable deep ocean fish farming). Personal investor alongside the firm in: Habana Labs (acquired by Intel), Kymera Therapeutics (IPO), Sendgrid(acquired by Twilio), Verodin (acquired by Fireye), Rocket Lab (unicorn), Auth0(unicorn), Bright Health (unicorn), Guild Education (unicorn), Pipedrive(unicorn), Toast (unicorn), Weave (unicorn), Toss (unicorn), ACV Auction(unicorn), Forever Oceans, Velo3D, Claroty, Kenna Security, Cambly. Looked at a broad range of frontier tech startups that transforms massive industries, including automation (land, air and sea), additive manufacturing (metal, plastic, composites, and other types of materials), computational technologies (quantum computing, new computer architecture, photonic chips), AI enabled software/services, space tech (data collection, network infrastructure/services, analytics), agriculture tech (Directional Virtual Fencing, robotic fish farming, plant-based meat etc), bio-manufacturing (bioreactors+genetic engineering for more efficient production of nutritional molecules or pharmaceutical ingredients), drone operation and defense software, cybersecurity, new materials, and any innovation that makes a 0 to 1 difference in solving the world's most critical problems.
Board Observer
2016 - 2019
Comparison portal and marketplace for healthcare products and services.
Cofounder, Former Advisor
2012 - 2019
Lanmou invented a proprietary transparent glass display for 3D digital media. We hold 10+ issued patents. We have deployed the 1st glass-free VR ads in subway stations (Singapore and Shanghai). As of today, we have partnered with multiple taxi companies and subway stations in 7 cities across Asia to run futuristic digital ads.
Investor and Board Observer
2017 - 2018
Acquired by Apple.
Graduate Researcher in Applied Physics
2010 - 2016
Advisor: Prof. David A. Weitz Thesis Committee: Prof. David A. Weitz, Prof. George Whitesides, Prof. David Mooney, Prof. Vinnothan Manoharan Field: Microfluidics, Immunology and Optics for Biology. Thesis: Developed a microfluidic platform to optically detect single cell cytokine secretion and select the effector cells with unprecedented accuracy and efficiency. Currently working on applying this technology for Adoptive Cell Therapy to cure various diseases, including AIDS and Cancer. Preliminary results on identifying effector T cells against HIV-infected T helper cells showed great promises. --Refer to Patent and Publication Advisor: Prof. Federico Capasso Field: Nanophotonics 1. Templated Self Assembly of Colloidal Metal/Dielectric Nanoparticles and optical properties of such particles-- Refer to Publication 3 (Sept 2012). 2. Collaborated with the Vinny Manoharan Group in Physics department at Harvard and the Gira Yi group in Korea on Physical and Optical Characterization of Ultrasmooth Metal Nanoparticles -- Refer to Publication 1 (Nov 2013). 3. Collaborated with the Adam Cohen group in Chemistry Department at Harvard on Optical Chirality --- Refer to Publication 2 (Jan 2013). 4. Side project a: developed flexible optical metasurfaces by self assembling nanostructures onto PDMS whose optical effects were confirmed with optical modeling and experiments Side project b: developed optical structures by self assembling Nanodiamonds onto patterned ultrasmooth gold films, initial results showed almost 10x improvement in emission intensity under a confocal setup with almost half the relaxation time Side project c: Collaborated with the William Shih group at Harvard Medical School working on DNA origami with attached metal nanoparticles to make novel optical nanostructures Side project d: Collaborated with the George Whiteside group on making flexible optical nanostructures by assembling nanowires onto patterned PDMS
Teaching Fellow for 3 Courses
2012 - 2014
As someone who loves teaching, I taught 3 classes at Harvard and tutored high school students on AP physics while getting my PhD. I was a teaching fellow for Graduate Course "Quantum Technology", Graduate+Undergraduate Course "Nano-fabrication of Optical Devices" and a general ed undergraduate course "Life as a Planetary Phenomena". I conducted sections/tutorials and assisted students in labs, projects and homework.
Evaluation of PV and EV Technologies on their Potential for Large Scale Co-commercialization
2008 - 2009
Evaluated the economic profitability of implementing Electric Vehicles and Solar Charging in a modern city setting, with and without carbon trading, government incentives and etc.
Education
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
2010 - 2016
MEng
2008 - 2009
Bachelor’s Degree, 1st Class Honors
2004 - 2008
Cross Registrant within Harvard
2013 - 2014
Study Abroad Program
2006 - 2007