Assistant Professor Jiguang Wang

Jiguang Wang is an Assistant Professor in Division of Life Science (LIFS) and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

Jiguang Wang is an Assistant Professor in Division of Life Science and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). He received his PhD degree in applied mathematics from Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and won the Special Prize of President Scholarship and Excellent PhD thesis Award of CAS in 2011. Between 2011 and 2015, he was a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Columbia University. From 2015, he was named as the Precision Medicine Fellow and promoted to an Associate Research Scientist. He has established the Wang Genomics Laboratory @HKUST in 2016, focusing on the application of data science technology in brain cancer genomics and medicine. He won the School of Engineering Young Investigator Research Award of HKUST, and Excellent Young Scientist Award of National Natural Science Foundation of China in 2019.

His research areas include machine learning, cancer evolution, and computational genomics. In the past five years, he has made substantial contributions to a) the reconstruction and elucidation of RNA Exosome-regulated non-coding transcriptomes (Nature 2014 and Cell 2015); b) the discovery of MGMT gene fusions in recurrent glioblastoma (GBM) (Nature Genetics 2016); c) the characterization of PIK3CA mutations in multifocal/multicentric GBM (Nature Genetics 2017); d) the development of the machine learning method, named dNetFS, for predicting drug sensitivity based on patient-derived cell cultures (Nature Genetics 2018); and e) the discovery, characterization and the clinical application of METex14 in secondary GBM (Cell 2018).

 

EXPERIENCE

HONORS AND AWARDS

  • 2019: Excellent Young Scientist Award, National Natural Science Foundation of China
  • 2019: School of Engineering Young Investigator Research Award, HKUST
  • 2017-2018: Pilot Award from Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers (PS-OC)
  • 2015-2016: Precision Medicine Research Fellowship from Columbia University 

Selected publications

[1]            Hu H*, Mu Q*, Bao Z*, Chen Y*, Liu Y*, Chen J, Wang K, Wang Z, Nam Y, Jiang B, Sa JK, Cho H-J, Her N-G, Zhang C, Zhao Z, Zhang Y, Zeng F, Wu F, Kang X, Liu Y, Qian Z, Wang Z, Huang R, Wang Q, Zhang W, Qiu X, Li W, Nam D-H, Fan X#, Wang J#, Jiang T#. Mutational landscape of secondary glioblastoma guides MET-targeted trial in brain tumor. Cell (2018); 175 (6), 1665-1678. (JW conceptualized the project, interpreted the data, discovered METex14, and wrote the manuscript, China’s Top 10 research advances in life science in 2018)

[2]            Jin-Ku Lee*, Zhaoqi Liu*, Jason K. Sa*, Sang Shin*, Jiguang Wang*, Bordyuh M, Cho HJ, Elliott O, Chu T, Choi SW, Rosenbloom DIS, Lee IH1, Shin YJ, Kang HJ, Kim D, Kim SY, Sim MH, Kim J, Lee T, Seo YJ, Shin H, Lee M, Kim SH, Kwon YJ, Oh JW, Song M, Kim M, Kong DS, Choi JW, Seol HJ, Lee JI, Kim ST, Park JO, Kim KM, Song SY, Lee JW, Kim HC, Lee JE, Choi MG, Seo SW, Shim YM, Zo JI, Jeong BC, Yoon Y, Ryu GH, Kim NKD, Bae JS, Park WY, Lee J, Verhaak RGW, Iavarone A, Jeeyun Lee#, Raul Rabadan#, Do-Hyun Nam#. Pharmacogenomic landscape of patient-derived tumor cells informs precision oncology therapy. Nature Genetics (2018); 50 (10), 1399. (JW performed majority of experiments and analyses and wrote the manuscript)

[3]            Chioma J Madubata, Alireza Roshan-Ghias, Chu T, Resnick S, Zhao J, Arnes L, Jiguang Wang#, Raul Rabadan#. Identification of potentially oncogenic alterations from tumor-only samples reveals Fanconi anemia pathway mutations in bladder carcinomas. npj Genomic Medicine (2017); 2:29. (JW designed the study, developed the pipeline, analyzed mutational spectra, and wrote the manuscript)

[4]            Jin-Ku Lee*, Jiguang Wang*, Jason K Sa*, Erik Ladewig*, Lee HO, Lee IH, Kang HJ, Rosenbloom DS, Camara PG, Liu Z, van Nieuwenhuizen P, Jung SW, Choi SW, Kim J, Chen A, Kim KT, Shin S, Seo YJ, Oh JM, Shin YJ, Park CK, Kong DS, Seol HJ, Blumberg A, Lee JI, Iavarone A, Park WY, Raul Rabadan#, Do-Hyun Nam#. Spatiotemporal genomic architecture informs precision oncology in glioblastoma. Nature Genetics (2017); 49:594–599. (JW performed majority of experiments and analyses and wrote the manuscript)

[5]            Jiguang Wang, Emanuela Cazzato, Ladewig E, Frattini V, Rosenbloom DI, Zairis S, Abate F, Liu Z, Elliott O, Shin YJ, Lee JK, Lee IH, Park WY, Eoli M, Blumberg AJ, Lasorella A, Do-Hyun Nam#, Gaetano Finocchiaro#, Antonio Iavarone#, Raul Rabadan#. Clonal Evolution of Glioblastoma under Therapy. Nature Genetics (2016); 48:768–776. (JW conceived the project, developed and carried out genomic data analysis, discussed the results and implications, and wrote the manuscript.)

[6]            Evangelos Pefanis*, Jiguang Wang*, Gerson Rothschild*, Junghyun Lim*, Kazadi D, Sun J, Federation A, Chao J, Elliott O, Liu ZP, Economides AN, Bradner JE, Raul Rabadan#, Uttiya Basu#. RNA Exosome-Regulated Long Non-coding RNA Transcription Controls Super-Enhancer Activity. Cell (2015); 161(4):774-789. (JW planned the studies, interpreted the data, conducted bioinformatic studies and designed all the pipelines for determining various RNA exosome substrate noncoding RNAs, prepared exotome browser, and wrote the manuscript)

[7]            Evangelos Pefanis*, Jiguang Wang*, Gerson Rothschild*, Junghyun Lim, Jaime Chao, Raul Rabadan#, Aris N. Economides, Uttiya Basu#. Non-coding RNA transcription targets AID to divergently transcribed genes in B cells. Nature (2014); 514(7522):389-93. (JW interpreted data and performed bioinformatic studies) (Highlighted by F1000)

[8]            Jiguang Wang*#, Hossein Khiabanian*, Davide Rossi*, Giulia Fabbri, Valter Gattei, Francesco Forconi, Luca Laurenti, Roberto Marasca, Giovanni Del Poeta, Robin Foà, Laura Pasqualucci, Gianluca Gaidano, Raul Rabadan#. Tumor Evolutionary Directed Graphs and the History of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. eLife (2014); doi:10.7554/eLife.02869. (Contribution of JW includes statistical analysis, conception and design of study, Analysis and interpretation of data, and drafting and revising the article)