Woong Y Hwang

About Woong Y Hwang

Woong Y. Hwang was born and raised in Seoul, South Korea until he was fifteen. In the late 1990’s, Korea’s economy faced major financial crises, which greatly impacted his family both financially and emotionally. However, Woong’s mother saw an opportunity to work as a nurse in the United States, and despite the language barrier, she received the sponsorship and the permanent residency for his family. He is grateful for his parents’ sacrificial love and the opportunity to study in the US.

After graduating from the University of Rochester, Woong joined Randall Peterson’s lab at Harvard University as a full-time research associate during which he conducted independent research on genomic editing tool development. His work demonstrated for the first time that the bacterial immune system called CRISPR/Cas9 can be utilized to modify any gene of interest in a whole living organism. His research resulted in a first author publication in Nature Biotechnology and a two-method paper to share this platform with other scientists.

He earned his MD/PhD degree at Yale University, where his thesis research focused on unraveling the molecular mechanisms of a novel gene implicated in birth defects affecting heart development and various cancers. His research was selected for the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation and awarded the NIH pre-doctoral MD-PhD Fellowship. He is currently an anesthesiology resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. As a physician-scientist in training, Woong aims to leverage the unique opportunity to advance personalized medicine through patient-driven translational research. Additionally, he aspires to mentor future physician-scientists and serve as a bridge between the United States and Korea to foster mutual advancements in medicine and science.