Siyuan (Steven) Wang, PhD

Siyuan (Steven) Wang, Ph. D., is an Associate Professor of Genetics and Cell Biology at Yale School of Medicine. Research in his lab focuses on the development and application of state-of-the-art image-based omics approaches to understand the spatial organization of mammalian genome and transcriptome, and how they impact cellular states. Originally from China, Dr. Wang received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from Peking University in 2007. He then moved to the US and received a Ph. D. in Molecular Biology from Princeton in 2011 and later his postdoctoral training at Harvard. In 2017 he was appointed Assistant Professor by Yale University, and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2023. Dr. Wang developed/co-developed multiple influential technologies in the spatial omics field including the first-in-kind image-based 3D genomics method termed “chromatin tracing” (Science 2016) to trace the spatial folding of genome, “MERFISH” for spatial transcriptome profiling (Science 2015, Nature Methods Method of the Year 2020), and “MINA” for integrative 3D genome, spatial transcriptome and protein imaging in the same, single cells in mammalian tissue. His lab recently generated the first single-cell 3D genome atlases in cancer (Nature Genetics 2025), developed a new high-content screening technology termed “Perturb-tracing” for building the 3D genomic “regulatome” (Nature Methods 2025), and invented a new spatial transcriptomics technology termed “RAEFISH” for sequencing-free whole-genome spatial transcriptomic mapping with single-molecule resolution (Cell 2025). He received the 2011 American Physical Society Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Biological Physics, the 2012 Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship, the 2016 International Union of Pure and Applied Physics Young Scientist Prize in Biological Physics, the 2018 35 Innovators Under 35 of China by MIT Technology Review, the 2019 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the 2022 Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Young Investigators in Cancer Research, the 2023 Biophysical Society Early Career Award in Physical Cell Biology, the 2023 Hevolution/AFAR New Investigator Awards in Aging Biology and Geroscience Research, and the 2024 American Society for Cell Biology Innovation in Research Award.