Overview
Dr. Greg Wang is Full Professor at Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology, Department of Pathology (adjunct) and Duke Cancer Institute, Duke University. He received his Ph.D. degree from University of California, San Diego, followed by a postdoctoral training with Dr. C David Allis at Rockefeller University. Before joining Duke in 2023, he has been a full-time faculty member since 2011 at Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. Dr. Wang’s research programs broadly focus on mechanistic understandings of how chemical modifications of chromatin (including DNA methylation and histone modifications) regulate gene expression and cell fate determination during development, and how their deregulations lead to human diseases, notably cancer. His laboratory recently identified and characterized novel proteins that specifically bind to histone lysine methylation. These histone modification regulators are crucially involved in gene and genome regulation, development, immunity, and/or cancerous transformation. Importantly, discovery of small-molecule inhibitors to target chromatin modulators has become an area of intensive investigation and holds great promise for therapies. Dr. Wang’s research excellence and expertise in the broad fields of chromatin biology and cancer epigenetics have earned him grant funding of NIH and private foundations such as an American Cancer Society Research Scholar, an American Society of Hematology Scholar in basic science, a Janet Rowley Medical Research award from Gabrielle's Angel Foundation for Cancer Research, and a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar. Greg Wang also receives the recognitions from the institute such as the Philip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement (2019, UNC) and the Yang Family Biomedicine Scholar (2020, UNC), as well as the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology (ASBMB) Young Investigator Award (2021). One of Dr. Wang’s research goals is to yield potential drug candidates with preclinical cancer models, which shall pave a way for translating new therapeutic approaches in future.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Recent Publications
The sotos syndrome gene Nsd1 safeguards developmental gene enhancers poised for transcription by maintaining the precise deposition of histone methylation.
Journal Article J Biol Chem · May 2025 Germline haploinsufficiency of NSD1 is implicated as the etiology of Sotos syndrome; however, the underlying mechanism remains far from being clear. Here, we use mouse embryonic stem cell (mESC) differentiation as a model system to address this question. W ... Full text Link to item CitePharmacologic degradation of WDR5 suppresses oncogenic activities of SS18::SSX and provides a therapeutic of synovial sarcoma.
Journal Article Sci Adv · April 25, 2025 Cancer-causing aberrations recurrently target the chromatic-regulatory factors, leading to epigenetic dysregulation. Almost all patients with synovial sarcoma (SS) carry a characteristic gene fusion, SS18::SSX, which produces a disease-specific oncoprotein ... Full text Link to item CiteEZH2 PROTACs target EZH2- and FOXM1-associated oncogenic nodes, suppressing breast cancer cell growth.
Journal Article Oncogene · August 2024 Breast cancer (BC) remains the second leading cause of cancer-related mortalities in women. Resistance to hormone therapies such as tamoxifen, an estrogen receptor (ER) inhibitor, is a major hurdle in the treatment of BC. Enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) ... Full text Link to item CiteRecent Grants
The role for phase separation in oncogenesis and aberrant chromatin looping formation
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Cancer Institute · 2023 - 2027Discovery of first-in-class WDR5 PROTACS as a novel therapeutic strategy for MLL-rearranged leukemias
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai · 2023 - 2027Dissecting and targeting canonical and non-canonical oncogenic functions of EZH2 in caner
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Cancer Institute · 2023 - 2026View All Grants