Principal Investigator
Seungmin “Sam” Hwang is a senior translation group leader within the Center for Integrated Solutions for Infectious Diseases (CISID) at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Hwang joined the Broad Institute in September 2023, and the focus of his research is to elucidate the mechanisms of organ dysfunction and immune paralysis in sepsis using clinical samples and animal models.
Sepsis is defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Despite considerable advances over the last decades, sepsis is still a leading cause of death in intensive care units, and survivors develop prolonged immune paralysis leading to a high incidence of recurrent infections. Hwang’s team is devoted to deep understanding of immune dysfunction in sepsis for novel therapeutic hypotheses, through close collaboration with Harvard teaching hospitals.
Prior to joining the Broad Institute, Hwang worked as the vice president of functional genomics and host-directed therapy at VIR Biotechnology. Prior to VIR, he worked as an assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and the Committee on Immunology, Microbiology, Cancer Biology at the University of Chicago, focused on host-pathogen/tumor interaction. He was awarded the NIH Director's New Innovator Award in 2017.
Hwang received his B.Sc. in biological sciences from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), his M.Sc. in molecular virology from KAIST, his Ph.D. in molecular and medical pharmacology from University of California, Los Angeles, and his postdoctoral training from Washington University in St. Louis.