Hoang C. Le

About Hoang C. Le

Born in Vietnam, Hoang Le is the son of Vietnamese refugees whose parents’ early lives were shaped by the Vietnam War. After his grandfather was released from Communist “re-education” camps, his father’s family fled Huế, a city in central Vietnam. Almost 10 years later, when Hoang was one, his mother carried him from Vietnam to join his father. His family moved around almost yearly until settling in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 

As immigrants who spoke little English and had no higher-education when they came to the United States, Hoang’s family faced constant socioeconomic hardship. This exposed Hoang at an early age to the stark inequities that marginalized communities often endure, which were most at display at the nail salons Hoang spent much of his childhood in while his parents worked. Feeling helpless, he devoted himself to education and took hold of every possible opportunity in high school, where he quickly found himself captivated by biology and the intricate mechanisms that define life. After meeting his future wife, who would become his most foundational source of support through every endeavor, they worked together on an independent science fair project that placed them in third at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. 

Hoang attended the University of Pennsylvania as a QuestBridge Scholar and graduated summa cum laude with bachelor’s degrees in computational biology and economics in the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management. With a newfound freedom to explore, he began working with Samuel Sternberg at Columbia University to bioinformatically study CRISPR systems, their evolution, and their ancient biological roles in hopes of discovering novel gene editors. Interested in harnessing CRISPR to discover genes important in disease, Hoang also worked with Ophir Shalem at Penn to develop new CRISPR-based screening technologies to study neurodegeneration. His research resulted in coauthored publications in Nature and Science. His undergraduate work won the Vagelos Prize for Achievement in Scientific Research from Penn, where he was also the student graduation speaker for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Hoang is motivated to combine his passion for biology with his commitment to addressing the inequities he and his family faced. This has led him to work on developing more accessible CRISPR-based diagnostics at Mammoth Biosciences and helping implement a new pandemic surveillance system in West Africa. He has also led new educational programs in science and medicine for West Philadelphia high schoolers.