Professor
Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Reimbursements
Teah Stacks
tstacks@health.ucsd.edu
858-822-5508
Human Resources
Lydia Heidt (formerly Napa)
lnapa@health.ucsd.edu
858-822-7861
Dr. Wang’s research focuses on understanding transcription and epigenetic regulation, chromatin dynamics, DNA damage repair, as well as developing novel anticancer drugs.
Dr. Wang’s group takes a multidisciplinary approach, combining structural biology, chemical biology, biochemistry, computational biology, and genetic methods, to study key protein complexes involved in these fundamental processes and pathways. Understanding how cell process these DNA lesions will help us to understand the mechanisms of drug action and resistance and pave the way for rational improvement of novel anticancer drugs.
Education: B.Sc. in Chemistry (1998) Peking University; Ph. D. in Biological Chemistry (2004) Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Postdoc Fellow in Structural Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine (2009).
Awards and Honors: OKeanos-CAPA Young Investigator Award at the Chemical and Biology Interface (2015); Kimmel Scholar Award (2012); UCSD Academic Senate Research Grant Award (2010); CIBA Young Scientist Award (2010); NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00, 2008); Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Career Development Program Special Fellow Award (2007); ASBMB Travel Award (2007&2008); ASBMB Chromosome Cycle Theme Poster Award (2007); Anna Fuller Fund Graduate Fellowship (2002)
Leadership Experience: Executive committee member, Stanford University Postdoc Association (2007-2008); Executive council member, Chinese-American Biopharmaceutical Society (2007-2008); Co-Chair, Chinese Life Sciences Postdocs and Students at Stanford (2005-2007).
- Pharmaceutical Chemistry I (SPPS 221)
- Pharmaceutical Chemistry III (SPPS 223)
- Concepts in Pharmacy Practice (SPPS 202A)
- Principles of Pharmaceutical Science and Drug Development (SPPS 263A)
- CTIPS (SPPS218B)
- Macromolecular Recognition (Chem 209)
- Chemical Biology (Chem 216)
- Molecular Biology (BIM100)
- Molecular and Cell Biology (BIM254)
- Investigate the action and resistance mechanisms of platinum anticancer agents.
- Structural studies of transcription inhibition by a variety of anticancer agents
- Structural studies of DNA damage recognition and transcription-coupled repair
- Structural studies of transcription recognition of unnatural base pairs
- Structural studies of transcription fidelity control
- Wang D et al. (2006). Structural basis of transcription: Role of the trigger loop in substrate specificity and catalysis. Cell 127:941-954.
- Wang et al. (2009). Structural basis of transcription: Backtracked RNA polymerase II at 3.4 Å resolution. Science 324:1203-1206.
- Kellinger M.W. et al. (2012). • 5-Formyl- and 5-carboxyl- cytosine reduce the rate and substrate specificity of RNA polymerase II transcription. Nature Struct. Mol. Biol.19:831-833.
- Wang L. et al. (2015). Molecular basis for 5-carboxycytosine recognition by RNA polymerase II elongation complex. Nature 523(7562:621-25.
- Xu et al. (2016). RNA polymerase II senses obstruction in the DNA minor groove via a conserved sensor motif. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 113(44):12426-12431.
- Xu et al (2017). Structural basis for the initiation of eukaryotic transcription-coupled DNA repair. Nature. 551:653-657.
- Oh et al. (2021). Transcriptional processing of an unnatural base pair by eukaryotic RNA polymerase II. Nature Chem. Biol. 17, 906-914.
- Yuan et al (2021). Clofazimine broadly inhibits coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-2. Nature. 593,418-423.