We are part of the Department of Biological Sciences (Scarborough), Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (St. George), and Department of Physical & Environmental Sciences (Scarborough) at the University of Toronto. The ongoing research in our lab focuses on the genomic evolution of microbial fungi and their intimate interactions with eukaryotic hosts. We seek to understand the genetic make-up of fungal symbionts and how they have adapted to their host environments over evolutionary timescales. We primarily use fungi and insects to study adaptation, evolution, host-microbe interactions, and host specificity by integrating modern genomic approaches with traditional phylogenetic methods.

Current research projects include:
1) Biodiversity of aquatic insect-associated fungi in Rouge National Urban Park
2) Assembling high-quality fungal genomes using long-read sequencing data
3) Developing phylogenomic markers for molecular systematics of early-diverging fungi
4) Investigating population genomic structure of insect-associated fungi

The Wang Lab is always seeking students and postdocs who are motivated to use fungi to understand evolution and symbiosis of life. Interested applicants should send your most recent CV and a statement of your research interests to yanxw.wang@utoronto.ca.

• April 2023- Congrats to Shal and Yibing for their CIGAF paper being accepted for publication at Database! Bravo to all contributors for the huge amount of work behind the paper/database assisted by multiple lab volunteers and our awesome collaborator Dr. Doug Strongman as a group effort to digitalize the 100-year trichomycetes collection across the globe!!
• April 2023- Congratulations to Sumhithaa for being awarded the 2023 TD Undergraduate Research Opportunity Fellowship to continue her research in our lab for Harpellales fungi research at Rouge National Urban Park!
• Jan 2023- Congratulations to Shal for a successful M.Sc. thesis defence on insect-trichomycetes network analyses.🎉😀
• July 2022- Congrats to lab undergrad Haider Alsafar to be selected to receive the CERA award for a Fourth-year Advanced Undergraduate Scholarly Project on single-cell genomics of Harpellales fungi. Also celebrate our lab for receiving the 2022 CERA Research Enhancement award for the fungal inventory project in Rouge National Urban Park! Students interested in aquatic fungal collection and identification should contact the PI for more details of the project and how to get involved.

• June 2022- Dr. Wang has been selected to receive a 2021-22 Connaught New Researcher Award, which will support a lab project entitled "Demystify the mosquito-fungus interactions using comparative multi-Omics approaches".

• June 2022- Shahd Daoud started her Milne Research Scholarship in our lab to work on a fungal codon usage project. Welcome Shahd!
  
• June 2022- Lynn Li joined the lab as a Summer Undergraduate Data Sciences student to work on fungal ubiquitin project. Welcome Lynn!
  
• May 2022- Maija Lehn starts her 2022 TD Undergraduate Research Opportunity Fellowship in our lab for a fungal inventory project at Rouge National Urban Park. Welcome Maija!
  
• May 2022- Welcome summer BIOB98 student Renato Sasso joining the lab! Renato will develop a fungal related HGT project using fresh data produced in our lab.
  
• May 2022- Dr. Wang has been nominated and elected as Councilor for Genetics and Cell Biology by the Mycological Society of America membership. Dr. Wang will serve on the Council during 2022-2024.
  
• April 2022- Congratulations to the lab undergraduate student, Yibing Wu, for being selected to receive the prestigious University of Toronto Excellence Award in Natural Sciences and Engineering (UTEA-NSE)! Yibing will focus on a fungal melanin project in the lab this summer.
  
• Feb 2022- Happy Spring Festival and the Year of the Tiger!
  
• January 2022- Happy New Year and welcome new undergraduate researchers join the lab. Welcome Zac, Sidra, Haider, Hania, Yue, and Joaquin!
  
• September 2021- New graduate student Huimei Yang joins the lab. Welcome Huimei!
  
• September 2021- Visiting undergraduat student Nicole Howes joins the lab. Welcome Nicole!
  
• June 2021- Congratulations to Shal for a successful transfer to the EEB PhD program! Shal's PhD thesis will focus on phylogeny, comparative transcriptomics, and ecology of Harpellales fungi.
  
• June 2021- Congratulations to our lab for receiving the Research Enhancement Fund from the Centre for Environmental Research in the Anthropocene (CERA)! Students interested in aquatic fungal collection and identification in southern Ontario are encouraged to contact the PI for more details of the project and how to get involved.

• May 2021- Dr. Wang delivered an invited talk at the Joint CanFunNet and Great Lakes Mycology Conference.
  
• May 2021- Welcome summer BIOB98 student Yibing Wu and BIOD95 student Huai Shiou Shih joining our lab!
  
• April 2021- Congratulations to Shalini Chaudhary, the graduate student in our lab, for receiving the NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship (CGS-M)!
  
• April 2021- Dr. Wang presented at the EEB Atwood Colloquium 2021 to feature the ongoing research projects in the lab (virtual/Zoom).
  
• March 2021- Dr. Wang was invited to deliver an informal research talk at the 2nd annual Life Science Research Night at UTSC (virtual/Zoom).
  
• March 2021- Dr. Wang was invited to give a talk at the Sino-Eco Seminar Series (Zoom/online).
  
• November 2020- Dr. Wang was invited as a judge and delivered the closing remarks at the 7th annual University of Toronto Most Understandable Scientist event.
  
• September 2020- New graduate student Shalini Chaudhary joins the lab. Welcome Shal!
  
• September 2020- New BIOD98 student Nishang Lin joins the lab. Welcome Nishang!
  
• September 2020- New BIOB98 student Aliza Khaitin joins the lab. Welcome Aliza!
  
• July 2020- Dr. Wang was invited to speak at the CanFunNet20 Career Panel.
  
• May 2020- Summer BIOD95 students, Asad Hassan and Nazia Nusrat, join the lab. Welcome Asad and Nazia!
  
• April 2020- Congratulations to our lab for receiving the first NSERC-Discovery Grant with a DGECR-Discovery Launch Supplement!

• April 2020- Congratulations to Dr. Wang for receiving the Mycological Society of America Martin-Baker Award, which recognizes a recent (within 10 years) Ph.D. mycologist, for the support of new or ongoing research.
  



• Mar 2020- Dr. Wang was invited to give an informal research talk at the inaugural Life Science Research Night at UTSC.
  
• Mar 2020- Dr. Wang was invited to give a seminar at the Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
  
• Jan 2020- Dr. Yan Wang started his own laboratory of fungal genomics and evolution at University of Toronto Scarborough campus. Potential new lab members are encouraged to contact!