Fellow:Nicholas Truong


Name Nicholas Truong School (Cohort) Santa Clara University (2021 cohort) Majoring in Biochemistry Country United States Email Special:EmailUser/Nhtruong

Bio

Nicholas Truong is a sophomore at Santa Clara University majoring in Biochemistry. He is interested in the intersection of medicine, tech, and social entrepreneurship.

At birth, Nicholas was diagnosed with a rare endocrine growth disorder called Russell SIlver Syndrome (RSS). Thankfully, Nicholas was able to receive treatment from specialists in New York City and today exhibits no obvious phenotypes of the disorder, though his experiences of growing up with RSS has led him to view the world in a unique way and inspired him to find ways to give a voice to those without one. In his hometown of San Diego, California, Nicholas has organized two benefit concerts for the UC San Diego Autism Center for Excellence and NICU at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, combining his love for violin and giving back to the hospital that originally diagnosed his condition. Outside of California, Nicholas has also served as a volunteer research clinical assistant for the MAGIC Foundation (a children's endocrine growth disorder foundation) in Chicago, Illinois, and has helped run their national diagnostic clinics for the past four years.

Nicholas has also been involved in a number of projects both on and off campus.

In April 2020, two months after the W.H.O. declaration of the Coronavirus pandemic, Nicholas founded a company (Uber Clean Planet) that distributed personal protective equipment to private medical offices in California and manufactured hand sanitizer in accordance to W.H.O. recommendations and C.D.C. guidance for industry. Later in May 2020, the sanitizer formula that Nicholas had created received F.D.A. approval under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ COVID-19 emergency addendum. During freshman year, Nicholas created an exploratory food snack project (@hellocrispysnacks on Instagram) with high school friends that sought to create dried apple chips without high-heat or freeze-drying processes. In June 2021, Nicholas accepted a position as a visiting undergraduate research assistant at the UC San Diego Yeo Lab for Hybrid Computational and Experimental RNA Biology & Therapeutics. On campus, Nicholas is a board member and marketing lead for the Santa Clara Venture Capital Association (SCVCA), and in October 2021 will begin working with the university’s venture fund due diligence team.