Research Interests
Research Topics
Immunology, Virology, Molecular Evolution, Protein Structure, Bioinformatics
Disease Research Interests
Infectious Diseases
Research Description
The Wu lab focuses on three research questions:
- What are the constraints of virus evolution?
- Can we predict antibody specificity?
- Can we improve the quality and speed of vaccine design?
The Wu lab addresses these questions mainly in the context of influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2, using molecular virology, protein biochemistry, next-generation sequencing, high-throughput assays, x-ray crystallography, cryo-EM, and machine learning.
Education
Postdoc, The Scripps Research Institute, 2020
Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 2015
B.S., University of Virginia, 2010
Awards and Honors
Vallee Scholar Award (2024)
Viruses Early Career Investigator Award (2022)
UIUC MCB Outstanding Junior Faculty Award (2022)
ASV Ann Palmenberg Junior Investigator Award (2022)
Searle Scholar Award (2022)
Michelson Prize (2021)
ESWI Young Scientist Innovative Award (2021)
NIH Director's New Innovator Award (2021)
NIH Pathway to Independence Award (2019)
Croucher Postdoctoral Fellowship (2015-2017)
Highlighted Publications
Wang Y*, Lv H*, Teo QW, Lei R, Gopal AB, Ouyang WO, Yueng YH, Tan TJC, Choi D, Shen IR, Chen X, Graham CS, Wu NC. An explainable language model for antibody specificity prediction using curated influenza hemagglutinin antibodies. Immunity 57:2453-2465.e7 (2024)
Lei R*, Kim W*, Lv H*, Mou Z*, Scherm MJ*, Schmitz AJ, Turner JS, Tan TJC, Wang Y, Ouyang WO, Liang W, Rivera-Cardona J, Teo C, Graham CS, Brooke CB, Presti RM, Mok CKP#, Krammer F#, Dai X#, Ellebedy AH#, Wu NC#. Leveraging vaccination-induced protective antibodies to define conserved epitopes on influenza N2 neuraminidase. Immunity 56:2621-2634.e6 (2023)
Tan TJC, Mou Z, Lei R, Ouyang WO, Yuan M, Song G, Andrabi R, Wilson IA, Kieffer C, Dai X, Matreyek KA, Wu NC. High-throughput identification of prefusion-stabilizing mutations in SARS-CoV-2 spike. Nature Communications 14:2003 (2023)
Ouyang WO*, Tan TJC*, Lei R, Song G, Kieffer C, Andrabi R, Matreyek KA, Wu NC. Probing the biophysical constraints of SARS-CoV-2 spike N-terminal domain using deep mutational scanning. Science Advances 8:eadd7221 (2022)
Wang Y*, Yuan M*, Lv H, Peng J, Wilson IA, Wu NC. A large-scale systematic survey reveals recurring molecular features of public antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2. Immunity 55:1105-1117.e4 (2022)
(*co-first, #co-corresponding)
Recent Publications
Calderin, J. D., Zhang, C., Tan, T. J. C., Wu, N. C., & Fratti, R. (2025). Use of Bio-Layer Interferometry (BLI) to Measure Binding Affinities of SNAREs and Phosphoinositides. In Methods in Molecular Biology (pp. 103-117). (Methods in Molecular Biology; Vol. 2887). Humana Press Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-4314-3_7
Teo, Q. W., Wang, Y., Lv, H., Oade, M. S., Mao, K. J., Tan, T. J. C., Huan, Y. W., Rivera-Cardona, J., Shao, E. K., Choi, D., Wang, C., Dargani, Z. T., Brooke, C. B., te Velthuis, A. J. W., & Wu, N. C. (2025). Probing the functional constraints of influenza A virus NEP by deep mutational scanning. Cell Reports, 44(1), Article 115196. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2024.115196
Lei, R., Liang, W., Ouyang, W. O., Hernandez Garcia, A., Kikuchi, C., Wang, S., McBride, R., Tan, T. J. C., Sun, Y., Chen, C., Graham, C. S., Rodriguez, L. A., Shen, I. R., Choi, D., Bruzzone, R., Paulson, J. C., Nair, S. K., Mok, C. K. P., & Wu, N. C. (2024). Epistasis mediates the evolution of the receptor binding mode in recent human H3N2 hemagglutinin. Nature communications, 15(1), Article 5175. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49487-4
Lei, R., Qing, E., Odle, A., Yuan, M., Gunawardene, C. D., Tan, T. J. C., So, N., Ouyang, W. O., Wilson, I. A., Gallagher, T., Perlman, S., Wu, N. C., & Wong, L. Y. R. (2024). Functional and antigenic characterization of SARS-CoV-2 spike fusion peptide by deep mutational scanning. Nature communications, 15(1), Article 4056. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48104-8
Liu, T., Reiser, W. K., Tan, T. J. C., Lv, H., Rivera-Cardona, J., Heimburger, K., Wu, N. C., & Brooke, C. B. (2024). Natural variation in neuraminidase activity influences the evolutionary potential of the seasonal H1N1 lineage hemagglutinin. Virus Evolution, 10(1), Article veae046. https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veae046
