Engineering Precision Biology for the Future of Medicine
Dr. Allen Wang is a scientific leader at the UC San Diego Center for Epigenomics (C4E), where he pioneers the use of cutting-edge genomic technologies to decode how genes are regulated in health and disease. As Senior Director of C4E, Dr. Wang brings together top-tier scientists, engineers, and clinicians to drive discovery at scale, transforming large datasets into biological insight.
Dr. Wang’s lab specializes in high-throughput epigenomics, including some of the largest single-cell ATAC-seq atlases to date. His work has helped reveal fundamental mechanisms of gene regulation in development, stem cell biology, and disease — including major insights into developmental competence and the genetic architecture of type 2 diabetes.
At the heart of Dr. Wang’s research is a passion for collaborative, data-driven science. He has led multi-institutional efforts spanning organ systems, species, and data modalities, producing thousands of public datasets and helping define the next generation of cell atlases through major research consortia, including the NIH BRAIN Initiative, LungMAP, HuBMAP-Lung, IMPC, SCORCH, AMP CMD, SenNet, TOPMed, and ENCODE.
Dr. Wang’s flagship projects include the most comprehensive brain and heart epigenomic atlases to date, charting chromatin and 3D genome landscapes in health and disease; a multimodal liver atlas that uncovered cell-type–specific programs driving fibrosis in metabolic liver disease; and a developmental and disease-resolved lung atlas defining genetic networks that underlie respiratory function and viral susceptibility. Together, these integrated resources are transforming our understanding of how gene regulation shapes human biology and disease, providing a foundational blueprint for precision medicine.
Beyond these efforts, Dr. Wang also investigates the "dark matter" of the genome — non-coding DNA regions that act as molecular switches, yet remain poorly understood. By studying how these regions control gene activity, Dr. Wang’s lab is uncovering regulatory mechanisms behind complex diseases like autoimmune disorders, metabolic disease, and liver degeneration.
Currently, his team is advancing functional models and analysis of human tissues to study liver diseases such as MASH, lung development and disease, and neural circuit formation. Across all projects, his mission is clear: to apply epigenomic technologies with creativity, precision, and purpose, building a biologically rich foundation for tomorrow’s therapies.
Q&A with Allen Wang
Meet Dr. Allen Wang of the UC San Diego Center for Epigenomics: Architect of Biological Resolution
Q: What’s the big question that drives your research?
I want to understand how complex diseases unfold at the cellular level — not just in test tubes, but in real tissues, in real time.
Q: What sets your lab apart?
We develop custom tools — hardware and software — that give us “microscopic GPS” coordinates for where every cell lives and how it behaves. This lets us track how disease spreads, mutates, and interacts with its microenvironment.
Q: Why should people care about this work?
Because diagnosis and treatment depend on knowing where and how things go wrong — and that means moving beyond bulk biology. We’re building the tools to make personalized medicine real.
Q: What kind of collaborations are you looking for?
We love working with disease biologists, AI specialists, and translational teams. If you have a complex tissue model or a data-rich question — we can help map and decode it.
Allen Wang, PhD
Senior Director
Principal Investigator
Systems Biologist
Cell Atlas Architect