Affiliation: National Institute on Drug Abuse (National Institutes of Health)

Dr. Hoang Le is a Program Officer at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Dr. Hoang Le has an extensive background in organic and medicinal chemistry. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.S. degree in chemistry and received a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from Cornell University. He then conducted his postdoctoral research in medicinal chemistry and enzymology under the guidance of Dr. Richard Silverman at Northwestern University. Before joining NIDA, he was an Assistant Professor of Medicinal Chemistry in the Department of BioMolecular Sciences in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Mississippi. The research in his independent lab was inspired by natural products and aimed to discover and develop novel derivatives of natural products that are biologically relevant for the treatment of cancers, infectious diseases, and neurological disorders, including substance use disorder. His recent work focused on ligands of the kappa opioid receptor, including ligands based on the natural product salvinorin A for treatment of pain and substance use disorder. His current work at NIDA focuses on developing and expanding a portfolio of grants on the chemistry and pharmacology of opioid receptors with special emphasis on novel ligands and molecular probes derived from natural product scaffolds.