Daniel Wang

My research is situated where nutrition, the human microbiome, and chronic disease epidemiology intersect. My program has two key objectives: understanding the functional role of the human microbiome in aging-related chronic diseases and developing personalized dietary approaches for more effective prevention of cardiometabolic disease and Alzheimer's dementia.

Currently, I am PI of an R01 project (R01NR019992), which aims to identify gut microbial features and fecal and plasma metabolites that explain interindividual variations in cardiometabolic risk changes following dietary interventions in two randomized controlled trials. This project also investigates the combined effects of Mediterranean diet interventions and autologous fecal microbiota transplantation. Furthermore, I serve as PI of an R00 project (R00DK119412) that examines the associations between the Mediterranean diet, the gut microbiome, and type 2 diabetes. In this R00 project, we found, for the first time, that the associations of a Mediterranean dietary pattern with cardiometabolic risk varied in individuals with different gut microbial profiles (Wang et al. Nature Medicine. 2021). Building on this, I established the MicroCardio Consortium, expanding my research from two cohorts to include 14 population-based studies across ten countries. Through this consortium, we recently identified strain-specific microbial signatures and functional genes underlying the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes (Mei and Wang et al. Nature Medicine. 2024).

Additionally, I serve as PI of two ongoing projects (R01AG077489 and RF1AG083764) funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA). These projects investigate the interactions between dietary intake and the gut microbiome and aim to enhance dietary prevention strategies for Alzheimer's dementia. These studies involve multiple observational cohort studies and randomized controlled trials. In these NIA-funded projects, we have identified dysbiosis-related markers, including Veillonella spp. and the opportunistic pathogen Erysipelatoclostridium ramosum, as indicators of cognitive decline (Ma et al. Neurology. 2023).