Ph.D. Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences 1991; Post-Doctoral Johns Hopkins University 1994; Post-Doctoral Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) 1997

 

 

The Wang Lab is working in the areas of bioorganic chemistry, synthetic carbohydrate chemistry, glycobiology, and immunology. Current research in the group is centered on protein glycosylation, one of the most ubiquitous posttranslational modifications of proteins in eukaryotes. It is estimated that half of total human proteins are glycoproteins. Glycosylation adds a new level of structural and functional diversity of proteins and expands the biological information of an otherwise concise human genome. Students in Wang group combine synthetic organic chemistry, structural biology, and immunology to understand the functional roles of glycans and glycoproteins in biological system. Current research projects include: 1) Development of new chemoenzymatic methods for the synthesis of oligosaccharides and glycoproteins; 2) Structural and mechanistic study of endoglycosidases and glycosynthases; and 3) HIV glycobiology and vaccine design targeting the viral envelope glycoproteins.