Wei Wang, PhD

Professor, Pharmacology and Toxicology

Degrees and Appointments

  • Post-Doctoral, Chemistry, University of Arizona, 2000
  • PhD, Chemistry, North Carolina State University, 2000
  • MS, Organic Chemistry, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1993
  • BS, Chemistry, Nanjing Normal University, 1988

Fields of Study: Organic Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry

Research

As Co-Director of the Arizona Center for Drug Discovery and professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Dr. Wang is responsible for advancing the mission of drug discovery at the UA Health Sciences, main campus and the Phoenix Biomedical Campus. By uniting the UA’s state-of-the-art facilities, expertise and resources, he will help facilitate drug discovery and development while enhancing translational research collaboration.

Dr. Wang received his doctorate in organic chemistry from North Carolina State University in Raleigh and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in chemistry at the UA. Before joining the UA, he was a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Dr. Wang’s research interests include organic synthesis, molecular imaging and recognition, chemical biology and medicinal chemistry (drug discovery). He is an author or co-author of more than 270 original research papers and 17 books/book chapters. He is in the top 5 percent of authors cited in the field of chemistry with an h-index of 72, an indicator of his productivity and influence in research.

He, S.; Dong, G.; Li, Y.; Wu, S.; Wang, W.; Sheng, C. “Highly Potent Dual BET/HDAC Inhibitors for the Efficient Treatment of Pancreatic Cancer” Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020, in press.

Zhang, Y.; Ji, P.; Dong, Y.; Wei, Y.; Wang, W. “Deuteration of Formyl Groups via a Catalytic Radical H/D Exchange Approach” ACS Catal. 2020, in press.

Geng, H.; Chen, X.; Gui, J.; Zhang, Y.; Shen, Z.; Qian, P.; Chen, J.; Zhang, S.; Wang, W. “Practical Synthesis of C-1 Deuterated Aldehydes Enabled by NHC Catalysis” Nature Catal. 2019, 2, 1071-1077.

Liu, S.; Pan, P.; Fan, H., Li, H.; Wang, W.; Zhang, Y. “Photocatalytic C-H Silylation of Heteroarenes by Using Trialkylhydrosilanes” Chem. Sci. 2019, 10, 3817–3825.

Ji, P.; Zhang, Y.; Wei, Y.; Huang, H.; Hu, W.; Patrick A. Mariano, P. A.; Wang, W. “A Visible Light-Mediated, Chemo- and Stereo-selective Radical Process for the Synthesis of C-Glycoamino Acids” Org. Lett., 2019, 21, 3086–3092.

Xu. H.; Xu., H.; Ma, S.; Chen, X.; Huang, L.; Chen, J.; Gao, F.; Wang, R.; Lou, K.-Y.; Wang, W. “Analyte Regeneration Fluorescent Probes for Formaldehyde Enabled by Regiospecific Formaldehyde-induced Intramolecularity” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140, 16408-18412.

He, S.-P.; Dong, G.-Q.; Wu, S.-C.; Fang, K.; Miao, Z.-Y.; Wu, Y.; Wang, W.; Sheng, C.-Q. “Small Molecules Simultaneously Inhibiting p53-MDM2 Interaction and HDACs: Discovery of Novel Multi-targeting Antitumor Agents”J. Med. Chem. 2018, 61,7245-7260.