We are a team composed of senior research scientists, graduate students, undergraduates, and high school interns.
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 fourth 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 third 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.
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 the textbooks into practice. Graduates from our undergrad program have pursued M.D., Pharm.D., D.M.D., and Ph.D. degrees at Stanford Medical School, Yale Medical School, UCLA, and USC. Our high school students have enrolled in some of the top universities in the U.S including Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, USC, UC Berkeley, Rice, NYU, and Harvard.
Stella Dziedzic, Undergraduate Researcher
I am currently a fourth 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 fourth year undergraduate at USC studying Pharmacology and Drug Development.
Thea Millam, Undergraduate Researcher
I am currently a fourth year undergraduate at USC studying Biochemistry. I generated mcrA deletion mutant to upregulate secondary metabolite biosynthesis pathways in Aspergillus.
Alexandria LaCorte, Undergraduate Researcher
I am currently a third year undergraduate at USC studying Biochemistry. I am working on sustainable production of color dyes.
Rina Okuda, Undergraduate Researcher
I am currently a third year undergraduate at USC studying Biochemistry. I am on working on genome mining of secondary metabolites.
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 Assistant Professor, Chi Tzi University, 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 San Marino, CA; B.S. UC Berkeley/ D.D.S UCSF Class of 2023, UCLA Fellowship
Bethany Cheng, San Marino High School, San Marino, CA; B.S. USC Class of 2022
Bethany Chen, South Pasadena High School, South Pasadena, CA; 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
Nathan Leung, Commonwealth School, Boston, MA; USC 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
Christopher Wong, South Pasadena High School, South Pasadena CA; UCLA Class of 2028