Rate My Professor Xing Wang

Dr. Xing Wang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with additional affiliations in the Department of Chemistry, the Holonyak Micro & Nanotechnology Laboratory, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and the Cancer Center at Illinois. He received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from New York University in 2009 and completed postdoctoral training at Princeton University, where his work centered on RNA biology and noncoding RNA-mediated genome editing. Before joining the University of Illinois, Dr. Wang was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from 2014 to 2019. He is the director of the Nucleic Acids Programming Lab and serves as a scientific advisor and co-founder of Atom Bioworks Inc.

Dr. Wang’s research utilizes nucleic acids and protein engineering to create and customize designer DNA nanostructure-based platforms for applications in bioengineering, bionanotechnology, and biomedicine. His group has developed the DNA Star, DNA Net, and DNA NanoGripper platforms, along with the concept of pattern-recognition enabled multivalent molecular interactions. These innovations support the creation of ultrasensitive biosensors for disease diagnostics, therapeutic candidates for cancer and viral infections, and tools for high-resolution imaging. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Wang received the Mikashi Award from the University of Illinois in 2021, was selected as a Fellow of the Y Combinator Founder Cohort in 2021, earned the Spoke Award from CZ BioHub Chicago in 2024, and was named a National Academy of Inventors Senior Member in 2026. His team’s DNA Machine Demo was highlighted by TechCrunch as one of the best projects from the Y Combinator W21 Demo Day.