Daniel Wang
Assistant Professor in the Department of Nutrition
Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Departments
Department of Nutrition
Other Positions
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Medicine-Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Related Links
Biography
Three questions organize my research program. What do the bacteria and viruses that live in and on us actually do to cause chronic disease, and how do we move from correlation to function, and from species to the strains and genes that carry the effect? And how early in life can the biology of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) be detected, and which parts of it remain modifiable once detected? Why do two people who follow the same diet end up on such different metabolic and cognitive trajectories? These questions are not separate lines of work; each offers a different view of the same problem: population averages conceal the variation that determines who develops disease and who benefits from prevention. My program sits at the intersection of nutrition, the human microbiome and virome, and chronic disease epidemiology, combining deeply phenotyped longitudinal cohorts, randomized trials, and multi-omics profiling to resolve that variation and act on it.
Precision prevention of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). We have defined distinct metabolomic profiles in APOE4 homozygotes that support targeted dietary strategies (Liu et al., Nature Medicine, 2025) and identified dysbiosis-related markers, including Veillonella spp. and Erysipelatoclostridium ramosum, that predict cognitive decline (Ma et al., Neurology, 2023). Our recent work applies plasma neuroproteomics, spanning amyloid and tau pathology, neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, synaptic integrity, and vascular dysfunction, in the Nurses' Health Study. We are using these measures to ask how early in the life course disease-related biology becomes detectable in blood, how these biomarkers change within individuals over time, and how inherited susceptibility shapes those trajectories, the question that determines whether such markers can guide prevention rather than only prediction. In parallel, we continue to identify modifiable targets for maintaining cognitive health, spanning diet, beverages, and physical activity (Zhang et al., JAMA, 2026; Li et al., Lancet Public Health, 2026; Liu et al., Alzheimer's & Dementia, 2026).
Microbiome and virome function in disease etiology across the life course. Using strain-resolved analysis of metagenomes assembled through the MicroCardio Consortium, which I established and which now spans 16 population-based studies across 12 countries, we identified strain-specific signatures and functional genes underlying type 2 diabetes (Mei and Wang et al., Nature Medicine, 2024). At the opposite end of the life course, we are analyzing longitudinal metagenomes from genetically at-risk children in the TEDDY study to test whether early gut microbiome maturation predicts progression to type 1 diabetes, and whether host genetic variation governing antimicrobial and antiviral immunity modifies that relationship. Extending this work to viruses, I co-direct one of five Human Virome Characterization Centers in the NIH Human Virome Program, where we are mapping the viruses that inhabit the human body and their dynamics with the host and the bacterial microbiome across five Harvard/BWH cohorts. A complementary line of work reads these exposures through the host immune system: by profiling a microbial-viral interactome alongside gut metagenomes and viromes, we are testing which microbial and viral exposures precede diabetes. Together, these efforts move the program toward an integrated account of bacteria, their phages, other viruses, and host immunity as a single interacting system rather than as separate layers.
Why dietary response differs between people. My group was the first to show that the cardiometabolic benefits of a Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) depend on an individual's baseline gut microbial profile (Wang et al., Nature Medicine, 2021). We are now working to resolve the mechanisms behind that heterogeneity. Across two long-term randomized trials, the 18-month DIRECT-PLUS and the 3-year MIND trial, we are integrating longitudinal gut metagenomics, fecal and plasma metabolomics, and host genetics to ask several questions: which baseline biological features identify the people most likely to benefit from a sustained MedDiet; how long-term adherence remodels microbial function and the fecal and circulating metabolome, and whether those layers move together in ways that point to mechanism. We have also identified gut microbial bile acid metabolism as a modifier of MedDiet effects (Gao et al., Gut Microbes, 2024), and are testing whether MedDiet combined with autologous fecal microbiota transplantation can extend post-intervention benefit.
Across these themes, our work depends on developing analytic methods for high-dimensional, longitudinal, multi-omic data; strain-level and functional metagenomic profiling; integrative modeling across omics layers; and causal inference in cohorts and trials.
Daniel Wang's lab is always open to offering thesis research opportunities and student projects, and we invite research fellows to join our exciting ongoing work.
Education and Training
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ScD, Nutrition and Epidemiology
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health -
MD, Preventive Medicine
Anhui Medical University -
MS, Nutrition
National Institute for Nutrition and Health -
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Metabolomics
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health -
Postdoctoral Fellowship, Human Microbiome and Computational Biology
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
