Giang Hoa: The Man Who Brought Genes Home

Giang Hoa’s story begins the way many scientific stories do: a student with big questions and a microscope.

He left Vietnam to study biotech. Landed in the U.S. to dig deeper — computational biology at the University of Pennsylvania. There, in a lab under Professor Junhyong Kim, he dissected the architecture of genes and how they shape the cell functions. He stayed for a postdoc.

“In this project, I tried to develop a new method to combine both wet lab protocol with dry lab analysis for next generation sequencing. So, I would say that from the early day of the next generation sequencing, I have been hand on with all of the new technology from Illumina to solid sequencing from ABI until some of the recent methods as well.”

He doesn’t boast. He recounts — precisely, honestly. He speaks of sequencing new species, single mitochondria, microbiomes. He speaks of entering a new field at the moment it opened up. Drowning in raw genetic data and learning to make sense of it. Use it. Apply it.

He returned to Vietnam with that mindset. Data-driven, adaptable, clear-eyed. And he saw what was missing — everything. He saw the critical gaps in infrastructure for advanced genetic diagnostics — and the opportunity to help close them.

So He Built the Way

Gene Solutions was founded in 2017 with a bold, simple idea: to unlock access to genetic testing in Asia. Not for papers. Not for prestige. For people.

“I think as a co-founder, one of the most rewarding experiences for me personally is how I see our tests can help patients to navigate their health care plan, to have better treatment and improve their quality of living, to have better preparation for the future,” he said.

Then he told a story.

“I still remember the first time when I learned that one of our diagnostics in a kid like six months old about the lysosomal disease. And it helped for the kid to get a treatment from WHO. When the treatment, it costs about $100,000 to $300,000. And WHO provide that for free with the requirement that there is clear genetic evidence to show that the child is appropriate for the treatment.”

They had that evidence. And they delivered it. Fast. 

“Last night when the doctors submit the document, and we got the approval from WHO for the drugs, that the first time I feel like in my life, I feel like when you step outside of the basic science, what you do, what your expertise can actually translate into something more.” He paused. Let the weight of that moment breathe.

“And I think that the first time I realized what I do can contribute to changing the way the health care plan can be and changing the way to help people to approach better treatment on that. So, I think for me, personally, that the time when, and over the last five years, I think we have more and more case, but that case still is on top of my mind when everything went in doubt or when we have any challenge. I always remember that.”

He doesn’t lead by title. He leads by belief. When asked about the vision behind Gene Solutions, he speaks slowly, like someone who’s said the words many times — and still believes everyone.

“Our vision is that we want to leverage the power of genetic data to empower how we are approaching the screening, the treatment, the monitoring for some of the disease that always involves the genetic factor, like cancer, like prenatal screening. And I think it’s a very big challenge to strive for our vision, but while still growing the company as well.”

He knows scale can dilute. Expansion can distract. Vision can get lost. So he fights for alignment — not with speeches, but with structure.

“One of the things is that I feel like that help all of our team is that healthy and consistent communication. Also, we have to strategically align our key performance outcome together with our overarching vision so that we make sure that while we still grow, while we still expand, but we’re still able to control our sustainability”.

The challenge is constant: how to grow without drifting. How to lead without losing. But he insists the compass still works — and everyone at Gene Solutions has a hand on it.

The Toughest Call: Choosing What to Build and What to Let Go

Of course, no journey like his comes without doubt. And the hardest choices aren’t always failures — they’re forks in the road.

“I think one of the toughest decisions we constantly face is choosing one project over another. Resource allocation and prioritizing our R&D projects—deciding which one to advance, which to pause, and which to walk away from—are incredibly high-stakes calls. Every time we consider stopping a project, there’s this nagging feeling: Are we making a mistake? Are we missing out on the next big thing? Because you never really know—you might be one step away from something transformative.”

But leadership demands decisions, not just dreams. And management team makes them — based not on hunches, but data.

“So, we’re trying to prioritize and allocate our resource as much as possible to R&D project. And we have to prioritize the project that we feel like has strong evidence. And for that, we’re using our data-driven decision-making to support us on what we’re going to do next. So that, I think, for most companies, identify the direction you want to move first will be always the most challenging decision.”

Integrity, Collaboration, Inclusion

Even so, it’s not just the data that drives the machine — it’s the people. And the founding team knows it.

“For me, I can list out some of the ones on top of my slide,” he says when asked what personal values have helped shape the company’s success. “Integrity, collaboration, inclusion — the three most things I believe that are most important and contribute most to our success.”

He applies those values to science itself:

“In integrity, in terms of both in the data, the way we’re approaching our R&D, and the results we can get from our R&D project to help us to better look into the potential for each of the directions we move into. So that way, we can choose the right direction for the company.”

But he knows science only don’t launch products. People do.

“For a project to turn out from the right direction, turn into some product, we need the effort from all of the team to deliver a product into the market. So, from the medical team, from our customer service team, to the laboratory team, and to the IT team as well, we all have to work together to make the product become the most convincing before we launch into the market.”

And the final piece — perhaps the most human — is belonging.

“Lastly, for all of us to see the outcome from our vision, we need to pull all the teams together so that inclusion, we need everyone to see the vision, to see the direction we’re heading into. So that will make everyone feel like they are part of it, they are part of what we’re delivering to the healthcare treatment for the patient. So that’s the way for us. Integrity, collaboration and inclusion are what contribute most to our success so far.” he adds.

That mission — simple but radical

“I think our early mission is simple. We’re trying to make the genetic testing become more accessible in those emerging or developing markets like Vietnam, like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, etc.” – Dr. Hoa says.

They started with non-invasive prenatal testing.

“When we started back then, we have performed a lot, many, like in the hundreds of thousands of testing every year. And that helps a lot of pregnant women from any unnecessary invasive testing when they have to do the amniocentesis a to perform that.”

It wasn’t just about convenience. It was about safety, scale, and relief — for patients and doctors alike. “It also helps to reduce the workload for the doctor performing the invasive testing in a clinical setting as well.”

Now, the mission stretches further.

“We’re starting to do more on cancer screening, to therapeutic options, to monitoring of the cancer status as well, and I think with the recent explosion of AI technology, we now can apply a large database of genomic data to advance our insight into genetic factors on healthcare and push for faster, scalable options in cancer treatment.” – he says.

The Reason Behind the Ultimate Dedication

There’s a reason why this mission hits closer to home than any strategy ever could. “I have two examples in my family.”

He speaks quietly — not as a scientist now, but as a brother. “One, I have a niece. She has a condition. I’m not sure if it’s genetic disease or not. But it’s how I impaired her since she was born like seven years ago. And I have to do all of the genetic testing.”

There were no answers. Just questions. And more tests. And more waiting. “I think with all of the current understanding, there’s no explanation on what happened. I try to push for the boundary to see there’s any other data inside in the world that can combine with her personal genetic results that can explain for what’s going on. And how I can help my brother to see that that is the explanation for it.”

He doesn’t say this for sympathy. He says it because it’s why he keeps going. “That is the solution for it. So that they can have peace of mind when they come back to themselves.”

Then there’s the other story — the one that changed everything.

“For the second case, my aunt … when I was doing my postdoc, my aunt passed away because of brain cancer. At the time, just suddenly one day, she dropped down and they brought her to the hospital. And then when they do imaging, we found a big, big mass in the brain.”

That was it. A scan. A tumor. A quiet goodbye.

“And at that time, the hospital said that they had no other option, just send her home. And we’re just waiting for the time. Basically that.” He was in Philadelphia. Powerless. “It really struck me because at the time, I was still in the U.S.—in Philadelphia—and all we had were the imaging results. Just the size of the mass in the brain, and that was it. No other information. Nothing else to guide us.” No biopsy. No sequencing. No second chance. “And no other way we can look at it. Anything on that, any diagnostic, any specific thing, anything we can use to see that is there any chance we can look into that.”

So he built the chance.

“So that’s the two things that make me feel like I’m born into genetics, and at that time, there are no other genetic testing in Vietnam at that moment. Not much of that. So that’s where we’re starting, Gene Solutions, with the aim that we want to first bring in genetics, making it accessible in developing countries, even though it’s widely popular in the US, in the Western countries at that time.”

It wasn’t theoretical anymore. It was personal.

“So that’s where we’re starting, and I think so far, we are part of it. And we’re able to help hundreds of thousands of people in Vietnam able to use it. And we’re starting to open it to the South Asian market as well.”

And the final sentence — the turning point — lands without effort, because it doesn’t need drama. It only needs truth.

“But I think it also makes me feel like I should switch from academia to translational. And that’s the decision when I decided to come back to partner with my friend, our co-founder, to building Gene Solutions, to bring advance technology. And we want to prove that it can be done in those countries.” And now, it is.

Riding the AI Flywheel

The science never stops. And Hoa knows that staying still means falling behind. “Yeah. Sure. I think one of the key things in the last three or five years is the explosion of AI methods and AI technology that has been brought to us,” he says.

The data now pours in daily — blood samples, tissue samples, clinical records. It’s not just a flood. It’s a force. One that needs structure. One that needs meaning. And AI, he believes, is the engine that can carry it forward. “With the wealth of data that we’re able to generate every day from all types of samples… we will be able to leverage the technology to find a pattern and insight that would be difficult to discover in any traditional approach,” he says.

They’re building not just tests, but infrastructure.

“We also try to expand our library of clinical and molecular data. And I think this will provide a strong foundation for the AI and also the data come together.” He describes it like a flywheel. “Right now, at the moment, we have like 50, 50% of it, right? 50% of the data, 50% of AI technology. When you blend them together into a flywheel… the more AI you can apply, the more insight you get, the more data you can get back from the market.”

And that momentum — once started — doesn’t stop. “It will elevate you to a state where you can have a lot of insight into what’s going on, and that brings a lot of application in terms of both screening, both monitoring, and both therapeutic sides as well.” Gene Solutions isn’t just keeping up with the future. It’s helping write it.

A Legacy That Listens

When asked about legacy, Hoa doesn’t talk about headlines, exits, or valuation.

“I think for us, it’s never about the legacy that Gene Solutions can leave to the world or anything like that, we only think of how our solution, Gene Solutions, could help patients during their healthcare journey.”

From the beginning, the company was built for real moments — not milestones.

“You know, from the screening phase where they have any worry about their healthcare, they come in and screening for cancer, screening for like any abnormality from their pregnancy, from time, et cetera.”

The goal isn’t just data. It’s guidance.

“That is to guiding their physician or anyone to optimal plan for the patient, especially cancer patient, and we would love to see them in the journey of how they can, after the treatment, they can have better and more quality of living, not worry much about what’s going ahead of them when they go into the treatment.”

But there’s more than personal care at stake — there’s a continent-sized gap in genomic understanding. And Hoa wants to fill it. “In the research side, we also want to expand our understanding of Asian genetic data toward therapeutic development, which is mostly based on Caucasian micro genetic right now,” he explains.

His hope is to give big pharma something they’ve lacked for decades: relevance.

“We can help some of the big pharma companies develop specific drugs, cancer drugs, or like cardiovascular drugs for Asian populations specifically, I think that’s the thing we would like to lead in the field of healthcare and data science — the data, understanding of Asian for therapeutic into the field.” he says.

Think Again

At the end of the interview, Dr. Hoa was asked a simple question — the kind that reveals more than expected.

What three books would you recommend? 

“For the last months I was so busy that I haven’t much chance to touch any new book so far.” Still, he has his picks. They reflect him — practical, forward-thinking, obsessed with insight. The first one they call Nexus by- Yuvall Harari, and then the second one is The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman, two of the big guys, and the book is a best-selling I think probably most of most of you if interesting in the field will know some of them.”

But it’s the third book that means the most. “The last book I would recommend is about how we can look at data again and again to generate innovative outcome, that’s one of the things I learned. Because, obviously, it’s also a little bit personal because the author is also a UPenn professor, Adam Grant. The book called Think Again.”

He pauses — just for a second. “It helped us to develop a little bit, going back to our data, our stuff, and then looking at it at different angle, at a new angle. And sometimes the rethinking process can help us to find new idea, innovative insight from the old data.”

It’s the kind of book, he says, that stays with you. “That’s what actually helped me and my team a lot when we have to looking back the data, a lot of time during the day and every day, every year on that.”  That’s how Gene Solutions works. Not by chasing what’s next — but by rethinking what’s already there.

Coming Home to Build

As we wrap, I ask if there’s anything I missed. He doesn’t talk about funding, or patents, or market share. He talks about going home — and staying.

“I would like to thank you for the opportunity to share about my thought and how we, in my thought and also our journey as well, I think… through this interview, you will have the audience understand more about what, if someone, some scientist can come back to developing country and what they can do with the power, with the… knowledge they built over in the Western side and come back and then develop.”

His words are simple. His conviction is not.

“And I hope that it can encourage a lot of scientists that starting to do, to go the same way. And I think it will contribute really, really massive to their country as well.”

This is not a story of success. It’s a story of return. And the quiet, relentless, brilliant work that begins once the homecoming is done.”