Current Research and Scholarly Interests
Dr. Wang is the Leland T. Edwards Professor in the School of Engineering, Stanford University. He is a Professor of Materials Science & Engineering and jointly a Professor of Electrical Engineering, and by courtesy, a Professor of Radiology (Stanford School of Medicine). He directs the Center for Magnetic Nanotechnology and is a leading expert in biosensors, information storage and spintronics. His research and inventions span across a variety of areas including magnetic biochips, in vitro diagnostics, cancer biomarkers, magnetic nanoparticles, magnetic sensors, magnetoresistive random access memory, and magnetic integrated inductors. He has over 300 publications, and holds 70 issued or pending patents in these and interdisciplinary areas. He was named an inaugural Fred Terman Fellow, and was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of American Physical Society (APS) and a Fellow of National Academy of Inventors for his seminal contributions to magnetic materials, nanosensors and cancer diagnostics. His team won the Grand Challenge Exploration Award from Gates Foundation (2010), the XCHALLENGE Distinguished Award (2014), and the Bold Epic Innovator Award from the XPRIZE Foundation (2017). He coauthored two textbooks: Magnetic Information Storage Technology (Academic Press) and Biochips and Medical Imaging (Wiley).
Dr. Wang cofounded six high-tech startups in Silicon Valley, including Curve Biosciences, Magic Lifescience, MagArray, and Flux Biosciences. In 2018 MagArray launched a first of its kind lung cancer early diagnostic assay based on protein cancer biomarkers and support vector machine (SVM). In 2023, Curve Biosciences demonstrated a circulating tumor DNA NGS assay, enabling early detection of liver cancer from cirrhosis with unprecedented sensitivity and specificity (both ≥95%). Through his participation and leadership in Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence and Semiconductor Research Corp (SRC) programs, he is actively engaged in the transformative research of healthcare and is developing emerging memories for energy efficient computing and edge AI.
Dr. Wang obtained his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1993, MS in Physics from Iowa State University in 1988, and BS in Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1986.
