Dr. Le graduated from the National University of Singapore in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences. She further received a Ph.D. degree in Computational and Systems Biology from the Singapore-Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Alliance under the guidance of Prof. Bing Lim at the Genome Institute of Singapore and Prof. Harvey Lodish at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. From 2010 to 2015, she took a postdoctoral training under Prof. Judy Lieberman at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the USA. From 2015 to 2019, she worked as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciences at City University of Hong Kong (CityU). She became a tenure-tracked Assistant Professor at Department of Pharmacology, National University of Singapore, in 2019.
Dr. Le is well recognized for her contributions to the field of microRNAs (miRNAs), extracellular vesicles (EVs) and cancer biology. She was the first to identify a miRNA that regulates p53, an important tumor suppressor gene. This miRNA, miR-125b, was subsequently found to be a potent oncogenic miRNA in leukemia and many solid tumors. Dr. Le characterized the anti-apoptotic functions of miR-125b in zebrafish embryos and mammalian cells. She demonstrated that this tiny RNA is dispensable for normal development as it regulates the delicate balance between cell death and growth by repressing the p53 gene network. Furthermore, during her postdoctoral training, Dr. Le illustrated a novel mechanism of cancer crosstalk in which miRNAs secreted by metastatic breast cancer cells are delivered to non-metastatic cells via extracellular vesicles (EVs) and promote colonization of tumor cells in the lung. Recently, our group has established a new EV-based drug delivery platform with efficient and safe delivery of RNA drugs to cancer cells. With these original findings, Dr. Le’s articles have been cited over 3,000 times by researchers worldwide.
In addition to her interest in research, Dr. Le also has a passion for education. At NUS, she coordinates LSM4221, Drug Discovery and Clinical Trials, and also teaches 2 other courses. As the Graduate Program Director of the department, she has organized various conferences for graduate students and researchers. She has organized the translation of “Molecular Cell Biology”, an American biology textbook by Lodish et al., into Vietnamese. As the project coordinator for over 10 years, she brought together the American authors, Vietnamese scholars, publishers, sponsors and hundreds of backers, to translate the most advanced knowledge in biology and promote science education in Vietnam. The book has been warmly welcomed by scientists and biology students in the country. Dr. Le also co-organized the Hong Kong RNA club for education in RNA research and the EV journal club at the Singapore Society for clinical, research and translation of EVs (SOCRATES).
Dr. Le was awarded several prestigious scholarships and fellowships during her studies such as the Lee Foundation study grant and the Singapore-MIT Alliance scholarship. She was one of the first three recipients of the L’Oréal Singapore for Women in Science National Fellowship broadcasted widely by the news in 2009. During her training at Harvard Medical School, she was awarded the Jane Coffin Childs fellowship, a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship in the USA. More recently, she received the NUS Alumni Team award, the Falling Wall Venture award, and the Graduate Mentor of the Year award for her contribution to education and biotech development. Her life story was featured in the book “Stories of Integration” which recognizes 30 naturalized Singaporeans with significant contributions to our society.
Dr. Le is currently an associate editor of the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles (JEV) and a deputy editor of the Journal of Extracellular Biology (JEB). She also serves as the co-chair of the Rigor & Standardisation Subcommittee of the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles and the Treasurer of SOCRATES. She is also a scientific co-founder and advisor of Carmine Therapeutics, a start-up company based on red blood cell EVs.
