Dr. Wang obtained his bachelor degree in Biological Science from Peking University (PKU), where he studied the Ca2+ signaling in astrocytes in Dr. Shiqiang Wang’s lab. Dr. Wang took his Ph.D. training with Dr. Martha Gillette at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC); his thesis research focused on the circadian oscillation of neuronal activity and metabolism in the central brain clock. Dr. Wang conducted his postdoctoral research in Dr. Lily Jan’s lab at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he became interested in the hypothalamic temperature-sensitive neurons and their role in the physiology and pathology of thermoregulation. Dr. Wang joined the faculty of the Chinese Institute for Brain Research (CIBR) in 2020; his lab is interested in the homeostatic regulation of metabolism-related physiology and behavior.
Dr. Wang has got the unique expertise to conduct research across the fields of thermobiology, chronobiology, and metabolism. His postdoctoral research combined cutting-edge technology of single-cell RNA-seq with whole-cell patch-clamp recording to characterize the genetic marker for temperature-sensitive neurons in hypothalamus, providing a powerful genetic tool to dissect the neural circuitry for thermoregulation in future research; the approach also established a general platform to dissect the genetic architecture of any type of neurons in association with their physiological function in unexplored brain regions. His Ph.D. research applied state-of-the-art approach of real-time imaging to record the circadian metabolic oscillation and neuronal activity in the central brain clock. His findings established the correlation between the neuronal metabolic state and membrane excitability in SCN neurons. This study provides a novel pathway for the metabolic oscillator to engage in the organization within the central circadian clock; and its impact is beyond the field of circadian clock.
Dr. Wang's research has been published on prestigious journals such as Science, Neuron, and PNAS.