Shuwen Wang

Education

• Postdoctoral training in Development and Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
• PhD in Biochemistry, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, New Hampshire.
• Bachelor of Science in electrophysiology and biophysics, Beijing University, Beijing, China

About Me

I grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. When I was in middle and high school, I read popular science magazines and books about great scientists like Marie Curie. I was especially inspired by Marie Curie and got interested in science. After college, I came to the US to pursue my PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology at Dartmouth College, mentored by Dr. Nancy Speck (now at the University of Pennsylvania). After graduation, in order to expand my knowledge and expertise to more research areas, I chose to do my postdoctoral training in neural development using the well-established genetic model organism drosophila (fruit flies), in the laboratory of Drs. Lily Jan and Yu-Nun Jan at the University of California San Francisco. I then moved on to work to do research on Alzheimer’s disease at Elan Pharmaceuticals for two years before joining the faculty at Pennsylvania State College of Medicine. My research expertise includes molecular biology, protein chemistry, developmental biology, genetics, and cell biology.

I currently teach both pharmacy and graduate students. For students who are pursuing Doctor of Pharmacy, I have taught immunology in 2014 and have been teaching Integrated Pharmacology (with topics in immunology, infectious diseases, and cancer) since 2015. For PhD candidates in Pharmaceutical Sciences, I have developed and been teaching Methods in Molecular and Cellular Biology since 2015.

In my spare time I like to…

Since I was little, I have enjoyed singing and music. My other and newer hobby is hiking, which I started after moving to Spokane. I also love reading books.

Why WSU?

I have been wanting to have a real teaching experience for a long time. Working at WSU allowed me to realize this dream.

My Favorite Quote

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” – John Muir

Selected Publications

Wang S. and N.A. Speck. (1992) Purification of CBF, a protein that binds the conserved core site in murine leukemia virus enhancers. Mol. Cell. Biol. 12, 89-102.

Wang S., Q. Wang, B.E.Crute, I.N. Melnikova, S.R. Keller, and N.A. Speck. (1993) Cloning and characterization of subunits of the T cell receptor and murine leukemia virus enhancer core-binding factor. Mol. Cell. Biol. 13, 3324-3339.

Wang S., S. Younger-Shepherd, L.Y. Jan, and Y.N. Jan. (1997) Only a subset of the binary cell fate decisions mediated by Numb/Notch signaling in Drosophila sensory organ lineage requires Suppressor of Hairless. Development 124, 4435-4446.

Sinha S., J. P. Anderson, R. Barbour, G. S. Basi, R.L. Caccavello, D. Davis, M. Doan, H. F. Dovey, N. Frigon, J. Hong, K. Jacobson-Croak, H. Tan, G. Tatsuno, J. Tung, D. Schenk, P. Seubert, S. M. Suomensaari, S. Wang, D. Walker, J. Zhao, L. Mcconlogue, and V. John. (1999) Purification and cloning of amyloid precursor protein beta-secretase from human brain. Nature 402, 537-540.

Wang, S., Hu, C., and J. Zhu. (2007) Transcriptional silencing of a novel hTERT reporter locus during in vitro differentiation of mouse embryonic stem cells. Mol. Biol. Cell. 18, 669–677.

Wang, S., Zhao, Y., Leiby, M., and J. Zhu. (2009) Studying human telomerase gene transcription by a chromatinized reporter generated by recombinase-mediated targeting of a bacterial artificial chromosome. Nucleic Acids Res. 37, e111.

Wang, S., Hu, C., and J. Zhu. (2010) Distinct and temporal roles of nucleosomal remodeling and histone deacetylation in the repression of the hTERT gene. Mol. Biol. Cell. 21, 821–832.

Mathew, R., Jia, W., Sharma, A., Zhao, Y., Clarke, L.E., Cheng, X., Wang, H., Salli, U., Vrana, K.E., Robertson, G.P., Zhu, J., and S. Wang. (2010) Robust activation of the human but not mouse telomerase gene during the induction of pluripotency. FASEB J. 24, 2702-2715.

Jia, W., Wang, S., Horner, J. W., Wang, N., Wang, H., Gunther, E. J., DePinho, R. A., and Zhu, J. (2011) A BAC transgenic reporter recapitulates in vivo regulation of human telomerase reverse transcriptase in development and tumorigenesis. FASEB J. 25, 979-989. (Co-first authorship)

Cheng, D., Wang, S., Jia, W., Zhao, Y., Zhang, F., Kang, J., and J. Zhu. (2017) Regulation of human and mouse telomerase genes by genomic contexts and transcription factors during embryonic stem cell differentiation. Scientific Reports 7(1):16444 (doi:10.1038/s41598-017-16764-w)