[2] Sundquist's research focuses on cellular, molecular and structural biology of retroviruses, particularly Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and on cellular membrane remodeling by the Endosomal Sorting Complexes Required for Transport (ESCRT) pathway.

Sundquist completed a PhD in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Stephen J. Lippard in 1988.

He was then a postdoctoral fellow at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England with Sir Aaron Klug.

The Sundquist lab also reconstituted capsid-dependent HIV reverse transcription and integration in a cell-free system.

Sundquist and colleagues found that retroviruses like HIV exit cells using the host ESCRT pathway.