Meng Wang ’04M (MS), ’05M (PHD)

Meng Wang, PhD, is a senior group leader in 4D Cellular Physiology at Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, VA. She is dedicated to peering inside organisms and cells to reveal new insights about one of life’s biggest mysteries—the fundamental mechanisms behind aging and longevity.

Wang received a bachelor of science from Peking University, China, and a PhD from the University of Rochester. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Wang joined the faculty of Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in 2010. There she was an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a professor and the Robert C. Fyfe Endowed Chair on Aging, and the co-director of the BCM Genetics and Genomics Graduate Program.

Wang’s research focuses on the molecular mechanisms governing somatic aging, reproductive senescence, and lipid metabolism, and their sophisticated interrelationship, through harnessing the power of functional genomics, metabolomics, chemical engineering, and optical biophysics.

At BCM, her group uncovered the first lysosome-to-nucleus retrograde lipid messenger pathway; provided new regulatory mechanisms of reproductive longevity; and demonstrated a novel mode of signaling communication between bacteria and mitochondria in regulating host’s lipid metabolism and longevity. Technological developments based on stimulated Raman scattering microscopy in Wang’s laboratory have provided brand new ways to visualize and track lipid molecules as a function of time and space in living cells and organisms.

Wang is the recipient of the National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award, the Edith and Peter O’Donnell Award in Medicine, the Gibco Emerging Leader Prize of the American Society for Cell Biology, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholars Award, the Early Career Life Scientist Award of the American Society for Cell Biology, and the Society of Chinese Bioscientists in America Kenneth Fong Young Investigator Award. She is also an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.