Contact Information
1102 Everitt Lab MC 278
1406 W. Green St
Urbana, IL 61801
Research Areas
Biography
Dr. Xing Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering, affiliated with the Chemistry Department, IGB, HMNTL, and CCIL at UIUC. He received a Ph.D. in chemistry from New York University and did a postdoc at Princeton University mainly focusing on RNA biology and noncoding RNA-mediated genome editing. He is an inventor of the DNA Star, DNA Net, and DNA NanoGripper platforms, and developed the concept of pattern-recognition enabled multivalent molecular interactions. He is a recipient of the Mikashi Award (UIUC) in 2021 and Spoke Award (CZ BioHub Chicago) in 2024. Before joining UIUC, Dr. Wang was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Research Interests
Dr. Wang is the inventor of the DNA Star, DNA Net, and DNA NanoGripper platforms that utilizes designer DNA nanostructures (DDNs) to create biosensors and biomedicines. His Nucleic Acids Programming Lab engineers DDNs that offer a "plug-and-play" platform to create functional nanomaterials with aptamers, nanobodies, fluorophores for developing (1) ultrasensitive and inexpensive biosensors for rapid disease diagnostics in both point-of-care and high throughput settings, (2) effective therapeutic candidates for infectious disease treatment/prevention and cancer immunotherapy, (3) new strategies and reagents for high resolution imaging. His research group is supported by NIH and NSF.
Education
Ph.D. in Chemistry, New York University
Additional Campus Affiliations
Associate Professor, Bioengineering
Associate Professor, Micro and Nanotechnology Lab
Associate Professor, Chemistry
Associate Professor, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
Academic Service
Dr. Wang directs the Nucleic Acids Programming Lab (NAPL) at UIUC. He is affiliated with HMNTL, IGB, and CCIL.
Highlighted Publications
Dwivedy, A., Baskaran, D., Sharma, G., Hong, W., Gandavadi, D., Krissanaprasit, A., Han, J., Liu, Y., Zimmers, Z., Mafokwane, T., Hayah, I., Chauhan, N., Zheng, M., Yao, S., Fraser, K., Decker, J. S., Jin, X., Wang, H., Friedman, A. D., & Wang, X. (2025). Engineering Novel DNA Nanoarchitectures for Targeted Drug Delivery and Aptamer Mediated Apoptosis in Cancer Therapeutics. Advanced Functional Materials, 35(22), Article 2425394. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202425394
Zhou, L., Xiong, Y., Dwivedy, A., Zheng, M., Cooper, L., Shepherd, S., Song, T., Hong, W., Le, L. T. P., Chen, X., Umrao, S., Rong, L., Wang, T., Cunningham, B. T., & Wang, X. (2024). Bioinspired designer DNA NanoGripper for virus sensing and potential inhibition. Science Robotics, 9(96), Article eadi2084. https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.adi2084
Chauhan, N., Xiong, Y., Ren, S., Dwivedy, A., Magazine, N., Zhou, L., Jin, X., Zhang, T., Cunningham, B. T., Yao, S., Huang, W., & Wang, X. (2023). Net-Shaped DNA Nanostructures Designed for Rapid/Sensitive Detection and Potential Inhibition of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 145(37), 20214-20228. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.2c04835
Ren, S., Fraser, K., Kuo, L., Chauhan, N., Adrian, A. T., Zhang, F., Linhardt, R. J., Kwon, P. S., & Wang, X. (2022). Designer DNA nanostructures for viral inhibition. Nature Protocols, 17(2), 282-326. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41596-021-00641-y
Kwon, P. S., Ren, S., Kwon, S. J., Kizer, M. E., Kuo, L., Xie, M., Zhu, D., Zhou, F., Zhang, F., Kim, D., Fraser, K., Kramer, L. D., Seeman, N. C., Dordick, J. S., Linhardt, R. J., Chao, J., & Wang, X. (2020). Designer DNA architecture offers precise and multivalent spatial pattern-recognition for viral sensing and inhibition. Nature Chemistry, 12(1), 26-35. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-019-0369-8
Chauhan, N., & Wang, X. (2021). Nanocages for virus inhibition. Nature Materials, 20(9), 1176-1177. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-021-01088-y
Li, N., Canady, T. D., Huang, Q., Wang, X., Fried, G. A., & Cunningham, B. T. (2021). Photonic resonator interferometric scattering microscopy. Nature communications, 12(1), Article 1744. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-21999-3
He, Z., Han, Z., Kizer, M., Linhardt, R. J., Wang, X., Sinyukov, A. M., Wang, J., Deckert, V., Sokolov, A. V., Hu, J., & Scully, M. O. (2019). Tip-Enhanced Raman Imaging of Single-Stranded DNA with Single Base Resolution. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 141(2), 753-757. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.8b11506
Kizer, M. E., Linhardt, R. J., Chandrasekaran, A. R., & Wang, X. (2019). A Molecular Hero Suit for In Vitro and In Vivo DNA Nanostructures. Small, 15(26), Article 1805386. https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.201805386
Wang, X., Chandrasekaran, A. R., Shen, Z., Ohayon, Y. P., Wang, T., Kizer, M. E., Sha, R., Mao, C., Yan, H., Zhang, X., Liao, S., Ding, B., Chakraborty, B., Jonoska, N., Niu, D., Gu, H., Chao, J., Gao, X., Li, Y., ... Seeman, N. C. (2019). Paranemic Crossover DNA: There and Back Again. Chemical reviews, 119(10), 6273-6289. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.8b00207
Recent Publications
Dwivedy, A., Baskaran, D., Sharma, G., Hong, W., Gandavadi, D., Krissanaprasit, A., Han, J., Liu, Y., Zimmers, Z., Mafokwane, T., Hayah, I., Chauhan, N., Zheng, M., Yao, S., Fraser, K., Decker, J. S., Jin, X., Wang, H., Friedman, A. D., & Wang, X. (2025). Engineering Novel DNA Nanoarchitectures for Targeted Drug Delivery and Aptamer Mediated Apoptosis in Cancer Therapeutics. Advanced Functional Materials, 35(22), Article 2425394. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202425394
Liu, L., Ayupova, T., Umrao, S., Akin, L. D., Lee, H. K., Tibbs, J., Wang, X., Demirci, U., & Cunningham, B. T. (2025). A biosensor-integrated filtration device for nanoparticle isolation and label-free imaging. Lab on a chip, 25(8), 2073-2084. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1039/d5lc00089k
Xiong, Y., Zhou, L., Cooper, L., Zheng, M., Shepherd, S., Dwivedy, A., Song, T., Hong, W., Chen, X., Liu, S., Le, L. T. P., Umrao, S., Rong, L., Wang, T., Wang, X., & Cunningham, B. T. (2025). Photonic Crystal Enhanced Fluorescence with DNA-based Nano-gripper for Ultrasensitive Intact Viral Pathogen Biosensing. In D. Fixler, & S. Wachsmann-Hogiu (Eds.), Nanoscale Imaging, Sensing, and Actuation for Biomedical Applications XXII Article 1333508 (Progress in Biomedical Optics and Imaging - Proceedings of SPIE; Vol. 13335). SPIE. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3043958
Fang, Z., Wu, Z., Wu, X., Chen, S., Wang, X., Umrao, S., & Dwivedy, A. (2024). APIPred: An XGBoost-Based Method for Predicting Aptamer-Protein Interactions. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, 64(7), 2290-2301. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jcim.3c00713
Le, L. T. P., Nguyen, A. H. Q., Phan, L. M. T., Ngo, H. T. T., Wang, X., Cunningham, B., Valera, E., Bashir, R., Taylor-Robinson, A. W., & Do, C. D. (2024). Current smartphone-assisted point-of-care cancer detection: Towards supporting personalized cancer monitoring. TrAC - Trends in Analytical Chemistry, 174, Article 117681. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trac.2024.117681