Jennifer Wang, MD
Professor of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology (Clinical)
Principal Investigator, UMass Chan Diabetes Center of Excellence (Research)
Dr. Wang is committed to understanding the innate immune response to viral infection and how innate immunity contributes to the etiology and pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes (T1D). She has made significant contributions to infectious diseases and immunology, authoring more than 60 peer-reviewed publications in high-impact journals including Cell, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature Communications.
For more than a decade, Dr. Wang has investigated the evolution of influenza A virus under selective pressures from antiviral drugs, antibodies, and viral reassortment. More recently, she expanded her laboratory research to SARS-CoV-2, examining single-cell transcriptional responses across diverse respiratory cell types using both in vitro and in vivo infection models.
Her work also explores type I interferon (IFN) and the inflammatory response during Coxsackievirus infection and their potential role in triggering T1D. Dr. Wang first demonstrated that Coxsackie B virus stimulates IFN-α production from plasmacytoid dendritic cells by showing that antibody-mediated opsonization is required to deliver viral nucleic acid to intracellular Toll-like receptor 7 (PMID: 17339429). In a separate study, she identified the cytoplasmic receptor MDA5 (IFIH1) as a critical mediator of host defense against Coxsackie B virus (PMID: 19846534). These findings directly informed her ongoing research into how activation of type I IFN pathways contributes to the pathogenesis of diabetes (PMID: 29369915).
Using multiple rodent models of diabetes, Dr. Wang generated an IFN receptor knockout rat that is resistant to diabetes (PMID: 27999109). Her current research focuses on identifying novel single-cell transcriptional changes during the pre-diabetic phase.
Dr. Wang joined UMass Chan Medical School in 2003 as a recipient of a National Institutes of Health Career Development Award. She is now a tenured Professor of Medicine and an active infectious diseases clinician at UMass Memorial Health in Worcester, MA. Her research is supported by the National Institutes of Health, DARPA, and the Department of Defense. Since 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, she has served as an investigator on numerous clinical trials focused on the treatment and prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
- Certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine
- Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
- UMass Chan Medical School Institutional Biosafety Committee
- Faculty member of the Immunology and Microbiology Program, Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Translational Science Program, and Program in Innate Immunity
- Served as an ad hoc reviewer and chair for several NIH study sections
- Mentors several graduate students
Education
AB Biochemical Sciences, Harvard College
MD, University of Michigan
Internal Medicine Residency: Oregon Health and Sciences University
Fellowship in Infectious Diseases: University of California, San Diego