Wei Wang, PhD

Director, Arizona Center for Drug Discovery
Professor, Pharmacology and Toxicology

As Co-Director of the Arizona Center for Drug Discovery and professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Dr. Wang is responsible for advancing the mission of drug discovery at the UA Health Sciences, main campus and the Phoenix Biomedical Campus. By uniting the UA’s state-of-the-art facilities, expertise and resources, he will help facilitate drug discovery and development while enhancing translational research collaboration.

Dr. Wang received his doctorate in organic chemistry from North Carolina State University in Raleigh and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in chemistry at the UA. Before joining the UA, he was a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Dr. Wang is in the top 5 percent of authors cited in the field of chemistry with an h-index of 70, an indicator of his productivity and influence in research. His research interests include organic synthesis, molecular imaging and recognition, chemical biology and medicinal chemistry (drug discovery). He is an author or co-author of more than 240 original research papers and 17 books/book chapters. He has six scientific patents and is a peer reviewer for more than 60 national and international journals.

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Education & Post Graduate Training: 

Post-Doctoral, Chemistry, University of Arizona, 2000
PhD, Chemistry, North Carolina State University, 2000
MS, Organic Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1993
BS, Chemistry, Nanjing Normal University, 1988

Areas of Research: 

Synthetic methodology development
Probe/drug design and development
Anti-cancer agents
Protein-protein interaction
Fluorescence sensors
Chemical biology
Synthetic biology

Select Publications

2018

Fang K, Dong G, Li Y, et al. "Discovery of Novel Indoleamine 2,3-Dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) and Histone Deacetylase (HDAC) Dual Inhibitors." ACS Med Chem Lett. 2018;9(4):312-317. PMCID: PMC5900342  PMID: 29670692

2017

Huang H, Yu C, Zhang Y, Zhang Y, Mariano PS, Wang W. "Chemo- and Regioselective Organo-Photoredox Catalyzed Hydroformylation of Styrenes via a Radical Pathway." J. Am. Chem. Soc.. 2017;139(29):9799-9802. PMID: 28692260
Huang H, Yu C, Li X, et al. "Synthesis of Aldehydes by Organocatalytic Formylation Reactions of Boronic Acids with Glyoxylic Acid." Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl.. 2017;56(28):8201-8205. PMID: 28544143
Zeng G, Li H, Wei Y, et al. "Engineering Iron Responses in Mammalian Cells by Signal-Induced Protein Proximity." ACS Synth Biol. 2017;6(6):921-927. PMID: 28221778