We are a team composed of senior research scientists, graduate students, undergraduates, and high school interns.


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Clay C. C. Wang, Lab Chief

I was born in Tokyo, Japan, and spent my childhood in Taiwan. After attending St. Paul's School in New Hampshire, I moved to Harvard for my undergrad, working in the laboratory of Professor George Whitesides. I graduated magna cum laude in Chemistry in 1996. I attended graduate school at Caltech, where I studied DNA binding small molecules called polyamides in the laboratory of Professor Peter Dervan and defended my Ph.D. thesis in the summer of 2001. I was an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, working in the laboratory of Professor Chaitan Khosla between 2001 and 2003. I worked on heterologous expression systems for bacterial secondary metabolism pathways in the Khosla group. Since 2003, I have been a faculty at the University of Southern California. I am Department Chair and Professor of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Professor of Chemistry at the Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Science at the University of Southern California.

 

Jennifer Shyong, Graduate Student

I am currently a third year graduate student. My project involves the discovery of therapeutics for Alzheimer diseases. I genetically modify filamentous fungi in order to create small molecule libraries for HTS screens.

 

Zoey Bowers, Graduate Student

I am currently a second year graduate student. My project involves the sustainable production of natural products.

 

Maria Tangalos, Research Scientist

I recently graduated from USC with a degree in Biomedical Engineering. My project involves the activation of natural products in filamentous fungi.

 

Ben Miller, Research Scientist

I recently graduated from USC with a degree in Chemistry. I am working on the sustainable production of organic molecules from plastic waste. My first paper was published in JACS.

 

USC Undergrads and K-12 Students in the Wang Group

The Wang group provides students interested in chemical biology a working environment to take their knowledge from textbooks into practice. Graduates from our undergrad program have pursued M.D., Pharm.D., D.M.D., and Ph.D. degrees at Stanford, Yale Medical School, UCSF, and USC. Our high school students have enrolled in some of the top universities in the U.S.

 

Stella Dziedzic, Undergraduate Researcher

I am currently a third-year undergraduate at USC studying Biochemistry, minoring in Science and Management of Biomedical Therapeutics. I am working on genetically modifying a sea anemone-associated fungus to activate the production of natural product drugs.

 

Victoria Feng, Undergraduate Researcher

I am currently a third year undergraduate at USC studying Pharmacology and Drug Development.

 

Thea Millam, Undergraduate Researcher

I am currently a third year undergraduate at USC studying Biochemistry. I generated mcrA deletion mutant to upregulate secondary metabolite biosynthesis pathways in Aspergillus.

 
 

Wang group Alumni

Graduate students

Alex Praseuth Ph.D. 2008, Director, Drug Development, Anaptys Bio

Angela Li Ph.D. 2008, Quality Assurance Specialist, Ascend Clinical

James Sanchez Ph.D. 2011, Senior Project Development Scientist, City of Hope

Hsien Chun Lo Ph.D. 2012, Private Investor

Amber Valencia (Somoza) Ph.D. 2012, Stability Manager, Tolmar

Ting Liu Ph.D. 2013, Director, Head of Regulatory Affairs, Embecta

Chun Jun Guo Ph.D. 2014, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical Univ.

 

Weiwen Sun Ph.D. 2018, Senior Scientist, AstraZeneca

Tzu-Shyang (Kevin) Lin Ph.D. 2018, Scientific Associate, Chameleon Communication International

Johannes Van Dijk Ph.D. 2018, Scientist III, Debut

Jillian Romsdahl Ph.D. 2018, AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow, U.S. Department of Energy

Adriana Blachowicz Ph.D. 2019, Planetary Protection Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA

 

Michelle Grau Ph.D 2019, Scientist II, Hexagon Bio

Bo Yuan Ph.D. 2022, Scientist I, Hexagon Bio

Chris Rabot Ph.D. 2022, Scientist, Invizyne

Shu-Yi (Dean) Lin Ph.D. 2023, Assistant Professor, National Defense University, Taiwan

Alexander Lin M.S. 2009, Chungmei Pharmaceuticals

Sofina Jain M.S. 2011, Takeda

Michael Praseuth M.S. 2013, Phenomenex Inc.

Yi En Liao M.S. 2018, Ph.D. student at UNC Chapel Hil

Sujeung Lim M.S. 2020, Ph.D. student at University of California, Irvine

Gujie (Frank) Xu M.S. 2020, Perkin Elmers

Research Scientists, Postdoctoral Fellows, Visiting Scholars

Kenji Watanabe Professor, Shizuoka University, Japan

Kinya Hotta Associate Professor, Nottingham University, Malaysia

Chao Hsien Lin  Assistant Professor, Chia Nan University, Taiwan

Michael Marques  Practicing anesthesiologist, Stanford Hospital

Kuan-Han Lee    Professor of Pharmacy, Chia Nan University, Taiwan

Vessela Petrova  Associate Director, Data Management, UC Davis Library

Shu-Lin Chang   Assistant Professor, Chia Nan University, Taiwan

Hsu Hwa Yeh     Assistant Professor, Chia Nan University, Taiwan

Swati Bijlani   Research Scientist, City of Hope, CA

Chi Ying Li    Postdoctoral Fellow, Academia Sinica, Taiwan

Ming Shian Lee   Principal Scientist, Leeuwenhoek Laboratories, Taiwan

Yi-Ming Chiang    Research Scientist, Hexagon Bio.

 

Undergraduate students

Jack Simityan B.S. 2006, Pharm.D 2011, USC

Michelle Munevar B.S. 2007, USC

Lydia Yeung B.A. 2007, U. Michigan

David Zhao B.S. 2008, UCSD

Emily Salan B.S. 2008, USC

Eric Kuo B.S. 2009, USC, M.D. 2013, Yale, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Columbia

 

Debbie Rodriguez B.S. 2009, Cal State Long Beach

Michael Praseuth B.S. 2009, M.S. 2013, USC

Sarah Ifrah B.S. 2011, USC

Dewayne Hudson B.S. 2014, Cal State Fullerton

Calvin Sung B.S. 2015, UCLA

Green Ahn B.S. 2016, USC, Ph.D. 2023, Stanford Univ.; Univ. of Washington Postdoc

Stefanie Loekman B.S. 2018 USC

Nathan Camarillo B.S. 2021, USC National Institute of Health Fellowship

Elizabeth Cheng, B.S. 2021, M.S. 2022, USC, AstraZeneca

High School Students trained in Wang group

Rebecca Liu, South Pasadena High School; B.S. UCLA, current: Impossible Foods

 

Sherry Zhang, Diamond Bar High School; B.S./ M.D. UC San Diego. Currently MD at UC San Diego

 

Joy Geng, San Marino High School; B.S. UC Berkeley/ D.D.S UCSF Class of 2023, UCLA Fellowship

Bethany Cheng, San Marino High School; B.S. USC Class of 2022

Bethany Chen, South Pasadena High School; B.S. USC Class of 2022

Ada Li, Westridge School, Pasadena CA; B.S. NYU Class of 2022

Kara Lee, Peninsula High School, Palos Verdes CA; B.S. USC Class of 2022

Justin Nakama, Crescenta Valley High, La Crescenta CA; B.S. USC Class of 2023, Currently at Amazon

Kevin Chang, Northview High School, Covina CA; B.S. Carnegie Mellon University Class of 2023

Joshua Lai, Maranatha High School, Pasadena CA; B.S. USC Class of 2024

Sarah Nakama, Crescenta Valley High, La Crescenta CA; B.S. USC Class of 2025

Anoushka Garg, Granada Hills Charter High School, Granada Hills, CA; USC Class of 2026

Tristen Mya Aguinaldo, Santiago High School, Corona, CA; UCLA Class of 2026

Taylor Aguinaldo, Santiago High School, Corona, CA; UCLA Class of 2027

Kai Herman, Polytechnic School, Pasadena, CA; Rice University Class of 2027

Hengrui (Henry) Hu, Hill School, Pottstown, PA; Class of 2025

Carolyn Kang, Taipei American School, Taipei, Taiwan; Harvard University Class of 2028