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Tanoto Foundation Professorship in Diabetes Research

Professor Wang Yibin

Tanoto Foundation Professor in Diabetes Research, December 2024 – Current
Professor and Programme Director, Signature Research Programme in Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disorders, Duke-NUS Medical School







Dr. Yibin Wang is currently a full Professor and Director of Signature Research Program in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Senior PI at National Heart Centre Singapore, Professor of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, Durham USA. 

Dr. Wang received his Ph.D. in molecular genetics and cell biology of human metabolic diseases from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, and post-doctoral training in neurobiology and molecular cardiology at The Scripps Research Institute and University of California at San Diego, respectively.  Dr. Wang’s research mainly focuses on genetic basis and molecular mechanisms of complex diseases, including heart failure and metabolic disorders. He has published 286 peer-reviewed scientific reports in many leading journals in the field, and is recognized among the world top 2% high impact scientists in biochemistry and medicine. Dr. Yibin Wang has made fundamental discoveries in three different areas related to diabetes and metabolic disorders. Dr. Yibin Wang’s lab uncovered the key molecular regulators in branched-chain amino acid (BCAA)  metabolism and established the contribution of BCAA catabolic defects in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance (published in Diabetes 2020), obesity and heart failure.  His lab also provided the first proof-of-concept evidence to target BCAA catabolism as a therapeutic strategy for diabetes, HFpEF and muscle loss associated with diabetes and obesity.  These findings were published in top journals such as Circulation, Diabetes, Cell Metabolism and Circulation Research, and have led to novel drug discoveries and new clinical trials for these diseases. Dr. Yibin Wang’s lab also made major discoveries on the underlying stress-induced molecular network in the pathogenesis of fatty liver and hepatic steatosis, a major trigger for diabetes among Asian populations.  Beyond the high-impact publications in Cell Metabolism and Science Translational Medicine,  several repurposed drugs have been identified from these studies, leading to new clinical development of novel therapeutics to block fatty liver progression.  In past 10 years, Dr. Yibin Wang’s lab has established the concept of metabolic targeted therapy for heart failure and muscle diseases, particularly, heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and sarcopenia associated with ageing metabolic disorder. These studies led to the unravelling of new mechanisms and diagnostic tools for these diseases and demonstration of therapeutic efficacy of glucagon receptor antagonists against these studies.  These work have been published in JCI, JACC-Basic Translational Science and Circulation Research, and a clinical trial is being launched based on these findings.

Dr. Wang has supervised more than 30 Ph.D. students and served as the course director and Vice Chair of the Molecular, Cellular and Integrated Physiology Ph.D. program at UCLA, as well as the course co-director for Precision Health in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases at NUS.

Dr. Wang received an Established Investigator Award from American Heart Association and was the Thomas Smith Memorial Lecturer at 2016 American Heart Association Scientific Session. Dr. Wang was the recipient of 2021 Excellence in Educational Innovation Award from UCLA College of Life Science, as well as the 2023 Basic Research Prize from American Heart Association. Dr. Wang holds 4 patents including three licensed, and he is the scientific founder and member of the scientific advisory board of a start-up biotech company.