Dr. Charles Hwang is the Peripheral Nerve Surgeon-Scientist Research Fellow at the Center for Craniofacial Innovation. His research focuses on advancing care for nerve injury through two complementary research thrusts: 1) comprehensive characterization of patient-reported outcomes from patients with peripheral nerve dysfunction and 2) deep molecular profiling of peripheral neurons.

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Dr. Hwang aims to facilitate good stewardship of nerve care and set the stage for new treatments centered around nerve regeneration. His research bridges our observations of biology in the operating theater and clinic to the transcriptional profiles of human nerves. In the clinic, the Hwang Lab works to develop to standardized patient-reported outcomes which will serve to train neural networks and enhance clinical decision support. His work will enable clinicians to robustly evaluate the impact of treatment, informing diagnoses and surgical approaches for headache and facial palsies. In the laboratory, the Hwang Lab develops novel techniques to interrogate the biology of peripheral neurons though the ability to isolate individual neuron soma. This cutting-edge technique enables deep transcriptional characterization of nerve biology at a new resolution and scale. Further, unique access to the patient biobank resources at CHOP and Penn Medicine in combination with Dr. Hwang's scientific strategy permit an unprecedented characterization of human sensory and motor nerves. This work will reveal the underlying regulatory programs on peripheral nerves and provide translational targets in motor/facia nerve regeneration and rehabilitation.

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Dr. Hwang comes to us from Harvard University where he served as a Resident Physician. During this time, he conducted extensive nerve biology research at the Sinha Laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Interdisciplinary Care for Amputees Network at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Hwang earned his M.D. from the University of Michigan and B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. 

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The Hwang Lab will be officially landing at CHOP in July 2025! If you are interested in joining the Hwang Lab team, please reach out to chopcranio@chop.edu.

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