Ying Wang, MD, PhD, has always felt a deep responsibility to care for underserved communities. Growing up in China, she chose to attend medical school at Xinjiang Medical University in the country’s northwestern region — far from the more developed eastern cities where most of the population and medical resources are concentrated.
“I wanted to serve the people who are not in the center of the country or in the urban area,” Wang said.
Her interest in integrative medicine grew during those years, leading her to pursue a master's of science in acupuncture science at Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. From there, she moved into neuroscience research, earning a PhD in molecular pain research from the University of Würzburg in Germany.
That mix of clinical training and scientific inquiry shaped her path forward. When she arrived at the University of Minnesota for postdoctoral training in translational pain research, she joined a lab focused on pain in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). Curious by nature, Wang was drawn in by this work when she learned that it was full of unknowns — particularly regarding pain research, her area of specialty.
"A lot of things are still unknown in this area," Wang said. "There is a huge gap between the research and the clinical application, especially for sickle pain management."
Wang joined the IU School of Medicine in July 2020 as an NIH K99/R00 awardee and tenure-track assistant professor. Since then, she has built a clinical pain research program and team from the ground up, focusing on the clinical efficacy and neurobiological mechanisms of integrative pain treatments such as acupuncture for sickle cell patients. Wang also established several cutting-edge technologies and methods for SCD pain research and built collaborations with outstanding investigators at Indiana University and other institutions, leading to continuous innovative findings and high-impact publications in this research field.
More than 90% of people living with SCD in the United States are Black. Many patients struggle with lifelong pain, often face barriers to adequate care and report feeling dismissed in healthcare settings. These inequities make both treatment and research especially difficult. Recruiting and retaining SCD patients for clinical trials is a major challenge for clinical research.
Pain in SCD presents in two forms: a chronic, steady-state pain that affects daily life, and the recurrent vaso-occlusive pain crisis, which always accompanies severe pain episodes requiring high doses of opioids to manage. Long-term reliance on opioids worsens the addiction and tolerance. Opioid-induced hyperalgesia diminishes the quality of life of many sickle patients, yet alternatives remain very limited. The unpredictable onset of pain crisis further hinders the timely clinical management for many patients.
Wang’s team aims to understand the brain and peripheral biomarkers associated with SCD pain to predict the onset of pain crisis and further address unmet clinical pain management by studying the clinical efficacy and mechanisms of non-addictive, non-pharmacological interventions. The remarkable recruitment and retention rates of her recently completed randomized controlled trial make it the most successful adult SCD trial in IU’s history. Her two other sickle trials are under active recruitment.
"These clinical trials have helped us gain a more in-depth understanding of the scientific mechanisms behind sickle pain pathology, as well as treatment efficacy and neurobiological mechanisms associated with the non-pharmacological pain management such as acupuncture," Wang said. "This critical work combines my research background with my commitment to underserved patients."
Her highly productive team was recently awarded an NIH R01 grant for a new clinical study. This new project will examine inflammatory and immune biomarkers tied to sickle cell pain and the progression of pain crises, and how acupuncture may influence those processes. The findings could open new doors for the timely detection of biomarkers associated with pain in SCD, while advancing the broader understanding of acupuncture’s role in pain management.
Wang emphasizes that none of this work is possible without the enthusiasm and dedication of the SCD patients and community. She interacts with SCD patients frequently and sees firsthand how the disease affects daily life. Their enthusiasm and dedication to science make them essential partners in advancing research, she said.
Those interactions greatly strengthen the sense of responsibility Wang feels to help those in need as much as she can. The patients who participate in her clinical trials are collaborators whose contribution is important to advancing sickle cell research. Their needs should be met, and they should feel respected, Wang said.
"We care about their feelings and quality of life," Wang said. "We are dedicated to sickle pain research and work tirelessly to serve the community and build a trusting relationship with every patient in the study. This is the most important thing to me."
