The Wang Group

About Us

Wang Group are engaged in the research of magnetic nanotechnologies, information storage, and biosensing and edge AI, broadly defined, including magnetic biochips, in vitro diagnostics, biomarkers, cell sorting, magnetic nanoparticles, nano-patterning, spin electronic materials and sensors, magnetic inductive heads, as well as magnetic integrated inductors and transformers. The group uses modern thin-film growth techniques, lithography, and nanofabrication to engineer new electromagnetic materials and devices and to study their behavior at nanoscale and at very high frequencies.  The group is investigating magnetic nanoparticles, high saturation soft magnetic materials, giant magnetoresistance spin valves, magnetic tunnel junctions, and spin electronic materials, with applications in cancer nanotechnology, in vitro diagnostics, spin-based information processing, efficient energy conversion and storage, and extremely high-density magnetic recording. In more recent years, the group has embarked on big data mining for biomarker discovery, drug development, and AI applications in biomedicine.

Wang Group conducts research in the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials (GLAM), Stanford Nanofabrication Facility (SNF) and Stanford Nano Shared Facilities (SNSF), Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE) hosted at Stanford, and Stanford Cancer Institute.  The Center for Magnetic Nanotechnology (formerly CRISM) directed by Dr. Wang has close ties with the Information Storage Industry and co-sponsors The Magnetic Recording Conference (TMRC).

The Group PI, Dr. Shan X. Wang, is the Leland T. Edwards Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, jointly of Electrical Engineering and, by courtesy, of Radiology (Molecular Imaging Program at Stanford). He directs the Center for Magnetic Nanotechnology and is a leading expert in biosensors, information storage and spintronics. His research and inventions span across a variety of areas including magnetic biochips, in vitro diagnostics, cancer biomarkers, magnetic nanoparticles, magnetic sensors, magnetoresistive random access memory, and magnetic integrated inductors. He has over 300 publications, and holds 70 issued or pending patents in these and interdisciplinary areas. He was named an inaugural Fred Terman Fellow, and was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of American Physical Society (APS) and a Fellow of National Academy of Inventors (FNAI) for his seminal contributions to magnetic materials, nanosensors and cancer diagnostics. His team won the Grand Challenge Exploration Award from Gates Foundation (2010), the XCHALLENGE Distinguished Award (2014), and the Bold Epic Innovator Award from the XPRIZE Foundation (2017). He coauthored two textbooks: Magnetic Information Storage Technology (Academic Press) and Biochips and Medical Imaging (Wiley). Dr. Wang cofounded six high-tech startups in Silicon Valley, including Curve Biosciences, Magic Lifescience, MagArray, and Flux Biosciences. In 2018 MagArray launched a first of its kind lung cancer early diagnostic assay based on protein cancer biomarkers and support vector machine (SVM). In 2023, Curve Biosciences demonstrated a circulating tumor DNA NGS assay, enabling early detection of liver cancer from cirrhosis with unprecedented sensitivity and specificity (both ≥95%). Through his participation and leadership in Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence and Semiconductor Research Corp (SRC) programs, he is actively engaged in the transformative research of healthcare and is developing emerging memories for energy efficient computing and edge AI.