His research interest is transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of hematopoietic stem cell and leukemia, and his scientific contributions include: (i) identification of the leukemogenic transcription factor complex AETFC; (ii) identification of the human histone H3K36 methyltransferase SETD2; and (iii) establishment of a developmental expression profile of hematopoietic genes in zebrafish kidney marrow. Xiao-Jian Sun received several awards including the 1000 Talents program for young scholars, the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission-Gaofeng clinical medicine award, the Rockefeller University Center for Clinical and Translational Science pilot award, the Starr Cancer Consortium visiting fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and the P&G scholarship for Ph.D. student at Chinese Academy of Sciences.