Menghua Wang

Dr. Menghua Wang obtained a PhD in pharmacognosy from Peking Union Medical College, China. His PhD work unraveled the highly photosensitive nature of poly-sulfur-bridged chetomin analogues, which is a special and important family of fungal secondary metabolites possessing marvelous anticancer activity. This finding explained the long-recognized puzzle of rarity and failure in total synthesis of chetomin analogues since 1944, and paved the way for the development of chetomins into clinical used drug.

He is currently working as a postdoctoral research fellow in Dr. Katherine Ryan’s laboratory at the University of British Columbia. His research interests focus on the clarification of biosynthetic pathways of bioactive natural products produced by microorganism. His research leverages a wide range of tools including genetics, protein engineering, natural product chemistry, structural biology, and enzymology to understand how natural occurring compounds are made.