J-C. Ernest Wang, Ph.D. - Postdoctoral Fellow

J.C. Ernest Wang, Ph.D.Ernest Wang received his B.S. degree in Medical Technology from the National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan. He came to the U.S. in 1997 and earned his M.S. degree in Basic Medical Sciences at the New York Medical College in 1999 before starting his Ph.D. training at University of Rochester. He received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology in the summer of 2006. Shortly after, he joined the RHIC as a postdoctoral fellow.

The focus of Ernest’s predoctoral study is to explore the mechanism of CD4+ T cell help for CD8+ T cell response. Under the supervision of Dr. Alexandra Livingstone, he developed a unique murine experimental system where the primary CD8+ T cell response in vivo is directly primed by peptide antigen-pulsed dendritic cells (DC) and dependent on the activity of CD4+ T cells primed by the DC co-expressing antigens for both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. He is currently working on several translational studies, including the development of a multichromatic flow cytometry assay to identify and characterize various DC subsets in human peripheral blood as well as other tissues for clinical studies, the conjugation of quantum dots onto monoclonal antibodies for applications in flow cytometry and fluorispot assay, and the development of objective gating method for high-dimensional flow cytometry data analysis.