Jia-huai Wang, PhD

Researcher

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Contact Information

Office Phone Number

(617) 632-3983

Fax

(617) 632-4393

Biography

Jia-huai Wang, PhD

Dr. Wang received his PhD in 1979 from the Biophysics Institute, Academia Sinica, where he became an associate professor in 1986 and professor of biophysics in 1988. He was a visiting scientist in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1979, and at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University in 1980 and 1988. He joined the DFCI faculty in 1996, focusing his research on the structural biology of cell surface receptors.

Researcher

Physician

Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School

Research

View Dr. Wang’s Research

Structural biology

Our laboratory studies cell surface receptors that are critical in cellular immunity and, in some cases, serve as virus receptors. In collaboration with Dr. Ellis Reinherz's laboratory at Dana-Farber, we have identified a series of crystal structures that provide the structural basis of T cell receptor (TCR) recognition of antigenic peptides presented on both class I and class II major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules. We have also determined the structures of coreceptors for class I and II. Determining these structures is pivotal to understanding cellular immune responses.

In collaboration with Dr. Timothy Springer in the Center for Blood Research at Harvard Medical School, our group has characterized a number of structures that play a key role in the antigen-nonspecific cell adhesion process. These structures include the functional fragments of leukocyte integrin ligands, such as ICAM-1, ICAM-2, VCAM-1, and MAdCAM-1. Furthermore, we determined the structures of the I domain of integrin LFA-1 in complex with ICAM-1 and ICAM-3 as well as the headpiece structure of integrin allbb3. We have also published the structure of the first heterophilic cell adhesion complex between human CD2 and CD58 that involves interaction between T cells and antigen-presenting cells.

In addition, we have solved structures of several virus receptors, including HIV receptor human CD4, human rhinovirus receptor ICAM-1, and the mouse hepatitis virus receptor (MHVR) - the first structure of a carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) family member. More recently, we identified the first structure of a domain from thrombospondin-1, and published the structure of a core fragment of the HIV surface glycoprotein gp41, which is a key element in virus-host cell fusion process.

Most recently we have began to work on neuro-receptor and their interaction with ligand. These include Dscam and DCC (deleted in colorectal cancer). The interaction between DCC and its ligand, netrin, plays a key role in axon guidance and other tissue development.