David Wang, PhD

Professor, Microbiology
Professor, Pathology & Immunology

Phone: 314-286-1123
Email: davewang@nospam.wustl.edu

Division

Laboratory & Genomic Medicine

Education

BS: Stanford University, Stanford, CA (1992)
PhD: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA (1998)

Research Interests

Research in the Wang laboratory is situated at the interface of molecular and cellular virology, genomics, and bioinformatics with the overall goal of exploiting novel viruses to elucidate fundamental biological processes and the etiologies of human disease. A major effort is dedicated to the identification of novel or unrecognized viral pathogens in both established and emerging infectious diseases. We have developed and applied state of the art NextGen sequencing platforms and bioinformatic tools for identifying novel viruses present in a variety of specimen types.

Ongoing research includes virus identification projects in respiratory tract infections, childhood diarrhea, transplant populations, and other diseases of unknown etiology. Identification of novel viral agents will serve as the launching point for additional studies focused on demonstrating disease causality and dissecting mechanisms of viral pathogenesis. In parallel, we are leveraging our discovery of the first virus of the model organism C. elegans to identify evolutionarily conserved host factors critical for virus infection or antiviral immunity in both nematodes and mammals.

DBBS Graduate Program Affiliation

Molecular Microbiology and Microbial Pathogenesis
Immunology
Computational and Systems Biology
Plant Microbial Biosciences

Selected Publications

My Bibliography

Smith B, Janowski A, Danis J, Harvey I, Zhao H, Dai Y, Farnsworth C, Gronowski A, Roper S, Fremont D, and Wang D. “Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in children and adults in St. Louis, Missouri” mSphere 2021 2021 Feb 3;6(1):e01207-20.

Jiang H, Sandoval Del Prado LE, Leung C, Wang D. “Huntingtin-interacting protein family members have a conserved pro-viral function from Caenorhabditis elegans to humans” PNAS. 2020 Sep 8;117(36):22462-22472.

Jiang H, Leung C, Tahan S, Wang D “Entry by multiple picornaviruses is dependent on a pathway that includes TNK2, WASL, and NCK1.” Elife. 2019 Nov 26;8. pii: e5027

Richaud A, Frézal L, Tahan S, Zhao G, Kaur T, Wang D*, Felix MA “Vertical transmission in Caenorhabditis nematodes of RNA molecules encoding a viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase” PNAS 2019 Nov 18. pii: 201903903.

Janowski AB, Klein RS, Wang D “Differential in vitro infection of neural cells by astroviruses” mBio 2019 Jul 9;10(4). PMCID: PMC6747723.

Zhao G, Droit L, Gilbert MH, Schiro FR, Dider PJ, Si X, Paredes A, Handley SA, Virgin HW, Bohm RP, Wang D “Virome biogeography in the lower gastrointestinal tract of rhesus macaques with chronic diarrhea” Virology 2019 Jan 15;527:77-88.

Le Pen J, Jiang H, Di Domenico T, Kneuss E, Kosalka J, Leung C, Morgan M, Much C, Rudolph KLM, Enright AJ, O’Carroll D, Wang D, Miska EA “Terminal urdiylyltransferases target RNA viruses as part of the innate immune system” Nature Structural and Molecular Biology 2018 10.1038/s41594-018-0106-9. PMCID: PMC6130846.

Krishnamurthy S and Wang D “Extensive conservation of prokaryotic ribosome binding site sequences in known and novel picobirnaviruses” Virology 2018 Jan 12;516:108-114.

Blatter J, Sweet SC, Conrad C, Danziger-Isakov LA, Faro A, Goldfarb SB, Hayes D, Melicoff E, Schecter M, Storch G, Visner GA, Williams NM, Wang D “Anellovirus loads are associated with short- and long-term outcomes in pediatric lung transplantation” Pediatric Transplantation 2018 Feb;22(1). PMCID: PMC5811341.

Jiang H, Chen K, Sandoval L, Leung C, Wang D “An evolutionarily conserved pathway required for Orsay virus infection of C. elegans” mBio 2017: 8(5). pii: e00940-17.

Janowski AB, Bauer I, Holtz L, Wang D “Propagation of astrovirus VA1, a neurotropic human astrovirus, in cell culture”. J. Virol. 2017: pii: JVI.00740-17.

Krishnamurthy S, Janowski AB, Zhao G, Barouch D, Wang D “Hyperexpansion of RNA bacteriophage diversity” PLoS Biology 2016: 14(3): e1002409. PMCID: PMC4807089.