Jing Wang

Dr. Jing Wang started his scientific journey as an undergrad curious about the intricate working of insects. Having worked in an entomology lab and entomology museum, he transferred to the University of Missouri to study how engineering tools can be applied to study complex biology, where he built computational models of the crustacean cardiac ganglion in the lab of Satish Nair and worked nanopore-based sensing of RNA folding in the lab of Li-Qun (Andrew) Gu. To gain experiences in animal models and tissue engineering, He moved to New York to pursue his master’s degree at Columbia University, where he worked with Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic and N. Valerio Dorrello to develop in vivo de-epithelialization and cell delivery strategies for lung repair in a rat model of acute respiratory distress syndrome. In 2025, Jing completed his PhD in Bioengineering at UCLA in the lab of Tzung Hsiai. His PhD combined single-cell RNA sequencing, light-sheet imaging, CFD modeling, and CRISPR activation/interference in zebrafish to uncover how contractile forces coordinate the cardiac trabeculation and how shear stress patterns AV valve leaflets. In 2026, Jing began his T32 postdoctoral training co-mentored by Dr. Hsiai and Dr. Mingxia Gu. Dr. Wang now focuses on translating the mechanobiology of valve development from zebrafish to mammalian models, aiming to provide more lineage-accurate and mechanically realistic iPSC-derived valves for better disease modeling and transplants.