Eric J. Sundberg

Eric J. Sundberg, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of Biochemistry at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. His research has focused on emulsion polymerization, structure and function of bacterial superantigens, and the interactions of bacterial superantigens with T cell receptors and major histocompatibility complexes. In 2002, he was promoted to non-tenure track assistant professor at the Center for Advanced Research in Biotechnology, an institute of the University of Maryland, and was awarded his first NIH grant, which he leveraged to obtain an independent faculty position at the Boston Biomedical Research Institute (BBRI), in Watertown, Massachusetts. At BBRI, he broadened his research program to include studies of additional immune receptors and antibodies.

In 2011, he returned to Maryland, this time to the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) and the Departments of Medicine and of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. At IHV, his lab was next door to that of Lai-Xi Wang; together they began a collaboration on the structure and function of EndoS, the IgG-specific endoglycosidase, that continues to this day. He moved again in 2019 to become Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the Emory University School of Medicine, where he continues to broaden his research program in glycobiology and infectious diseases.

Dr. Sundberg has received numerous awards throughout his career, including an Arthritis Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship, an Elsa U. Pardee Foundation Cancer Research Award, a Simeon J. Fortin Charitable Foundation Cancer Research Award, an Experienced Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, an American Asthma Foundation Scholar Award, and a National Psoriasis Foundation Discovery Award. He serves the scientific community in myriad ways, most notably as Chair of the Public Affairs Committee of the Biophysical Society.