Bio
Taia Wang is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) and of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is a also a primary faculty member in the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation, and Infection. Her laboratory defines mechanisms in antibody and effector cell biology to enhance vaccine responses and improve outcomes in infectious and inflammatory disease.
Dr. Wang's work is recognized for revealing how IgG glycosylation regulates human antibody biology and immunity to viral infection. She has shown that human IgG glycosylation is highly variable and shaped by both vaccination and infection. In dengue, she found that both severe disease and post-vaccination susceptibility to infection are associated with elevated afucosylated anti-dengue IgG, which may contribute to infection and pathology, and she has established more broadly how sialic acid and core fucose tune the inflammatory potential of naturally produced human antibodies, including how IgG glycosylation regulates inflammation in the airway. Using mechanistic in vivo models, she has shown that these glycan features shape both vaccine response quality and infection severity. Together, her findings reframe antibody glycosylation as an active regulator of immunity, rather than a simple reflection of immune status, opening new routes to improved vaccines and targeted therapeutics.
Dr. Wang earned her MD and PhD through the Medical Scientist Training Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where her doctoral work with Dr. Peter Palese identified structural determinants of broad influenza immunity, and completed postdoctoral training in Fc receptor and human antibody biology with Dr. Jeffrey Ravetch at the Rockefeller University, along with a Master of Science in Clinical Investigation. Her honors include the Searle Scholars Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Award for Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease, and the Bravo Family Faculty Scholar Endowment.
