Heloise Hoffmann isn’t afraid to fail. In fact, one of her favorite things about the Stanford community is its culture of innovation and risk-taking.
“People here aren’t afraid to do the unconventional thing that they’ve always dreamed of doing,” she said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time at Stanford, it’s that you are the only person stopping yourself from going out there and doing the thing.”
Hoffmann’s recent defeats have come in a ceramics class (“the clay keeps breaking in my hands, but I’m actually having so much fun,” she said), but her biggest risks as a student have been in the lab.
During her sophomore year, Hoffmann worked alongside a team of eight undergraduates in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) synthetic biology competition; the group won gold for their proposed cure for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a rare genetic disease that causes progressive muscle degeneration. She and two others from the team then successfully pitched their project to the Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Program at Sarafan ChEM-H, winning $50,000 to continue their work, which has proven effective in a cell model.
Images by Andrew Brodhead
Hoffmann says her greatest inspiration at Stanford has been her fellow students – their passion, she says, pushes her to take control of her own life without taking herself too seriously.
Hoffmann reviews a slide with members of the Qi lab team. “Having mentors willing to get down to your level and say, ‘I believe in you’ – that makes all the difference,” she says.
Hoffmann’s work on a potential FSHD treatment earned her team a gold medal in the iGEM synthetic biology competition and a $50,000 grant to continue the project.
Developing safe and effective treatments for disease can be a long and uncertain process, but Hoffmann isn’t deterred. “Your first experiment fails,” she says. “You keep going, try again.”
Hoffmann rehearses with Denim in Distress, a group she co-founded during her junior year that plays venues across campus.
Hoffmann, who has played guitar since she was 5, says music has been a creative outlet throughout her time at Stanford.
Hoffmann, who is applying to MD/PhD programs, says Stanford has taught her to innovate and take risks: “People here aren’t afraid to do the unconventional thing that they’ve always dreamed of doing.”
Hoffmann, a bioengineering major, knows her chosen field is an uncertain one – developing safe and effective medicines and treatments can take more than a decade; most ideas never make it out of the lab. Nevertheless, she is determined.
“My goal is to see this impact patients one day,” she says. “You try to get your research off the ground. Your first experiment fails. You keep going, try again.”
Hoffmann, who grew up in Belgium and has also lived in Texas and Florida, has a personal connection to her research: She was diagnosed at age 13 with FSHD. “Knowing that this is happening in my own body, there’s no better motivation. It’s been such an empowering experience to be able to chase my own cure.”
Hoffmann is applying to MD/PhD programs and plans to spend next year continuing her research in the Stanley Qi Lab at Stanford Medicine.
Music has been part of her path, too. Hoffmann has played guitar since she was 5; she and a few friends founded the band Denim in Distress during her junior year. It’s a creative outlet she describes as both “a blast and a blessing.”
Looking back on her four years at Stanford, she says her greatest inspiration has been the passion and groundedness of her fellow classmates. “They inspire me to step up and take control of my own life while not taking myself too seriously.”
Writer
Rebecca Beyer