Dan Ohtan Wang
Professor of Biology
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: BA Tokyo Institute of Technology; PhD University of Southern California
Research Areas: Synaptic organization; RNA biology; Post-transcriptional regulation
Dr. Dan Ohtan Wang is a molecular and cellular neuroscientist to study how gene expression in neurons is connected to the environment and experience. Her lab focus on the post-transcriptional regulation mechanisms such as RNA trafficking and dynamic epitranscriptomic regulation (RNA epigenetics). She completed a BA in Bioengineering at Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan, a PhD in Neurosciences at the University of Southern California in the USA (2004), and postdoctoral training in The UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences (2010).
She started her lab as an assistant professor at Kyoto University in 2012. She pioneered RNA live-imaging techniques using hybridization-sensitive fluorescent probes and succeeded in ex vivo RNA imaging in living brain tissues. Her lab also reported the first draft of synaptically localized messenger RNAs with N6-methyl-adenosine modifications in 2018. The initial findings have suggested functional links to the synaptic organization and neuropsychiatric diseases, but the underlying cellular pathways and molecular platforms remain to be revealed. She will be setting up a neuroepitrancriptomics lab at NYUAD to study* how versatile RNA modifications modulate gene expression in space and time responsible for behavioral adaptation.