From 1993 to 1998, Wang Hongyan studied as an undergraduate in the Department of Clinical Medicine, Anhui Medical University (AHMU). From 1998 to 2001, she was a master under the joint training of AHMU's Department of Immunology and State Key Laboratory of Viral Genetic Engineering, Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine. She studied for her doctorate and served as Research Associate at Imperial College London from 2001 to 2006, and as Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge from 2006 to 2010. In March 2010, she served as a research fellow and principal investigator of the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology (SIBCB), CAS. In 2011, she was selected for Shanghai Pujiang Talent Program. She was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China as an Excellent Young Scholar in 2014 and as an Outstanding Young Scholar in 2018. In 2015, she was awarded as Excellent Instructor of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.