My Work: Explained

For family, friends, and the curious. For professionals please consult Scientific Interests.
Last updated 2026/01/01.

TL;DR I develop targeted cancer treatments. These therapies find and destroy tumours while sparing healthy tissue. Unlike chemotherapy and conventional radiation, which affect the entire body, targeted treatments go after the disease, not the body fighting it. This page explains how, and why it matters.

Why This Matters

Most of us know someone affected by cancer. This work is for them, and for us.

Current treatments like chemotherapy and radiation save lives, but they harm healthy cells too. What if we could deliver treatment directly to cancer cells and spare the rest?

That is the question driving my research. And progress is already changing lives.

Figure 1. Evolution of Cancer Treatment. Cancer treatment has evolved through five generations. Surgery (1900s) cuts the tumour out. Chemotherapy (1940s–50s) poisons systemically, with the expectation that the cancer dies first. Radiation therapy (1950s–60s) irradiates from outside the body. Antibodies (1990s–2000s) act as guided missiles that locate the cancer and leverage the immune system to kill them. Targeted radiotherapy (2010s–present) combines guidance with a radioactive warhead, delivering treatment directly to cancer cells. Other promising approaches like CAR-T also exist, but are beyond my expertise. World events mark each era: first flight, world wars, TV, moon landing, internet, smartphones, and COVID-19.

The Big Idea: Targeted Treatment

Figure 2. Whole Garden vs. Just the Weed. Left: Conventional treatment, shown as a watering can pouring toxic liquid over an entire garden, harms the local environment alongside the weed. Right: Targeted therapy, shown as a robotic arm precisely focusing on a single weed, achieves selective destruction while leaving the surrounding plants unharmed.

Imagine a weed in your garden. You could drench everything with herbicide, or carefully pull just the weed.

Chemotherapy is the herbicide. It is poison that affects your entire body. Targeted therapy pulls just the weed.

This is already happening. Drugs like Lutathera (2018) and Pluvicto (2022) use molecules that find cancer cells and deliver radiation directly to them.

My work focuses on improving precision and reducing side effects.

FDA-approved targeted therapies (Click to expand)

Lutathera (lutetium Lu-177 dotatate; Advanced Accelerator Applications/Novartis; FDA-approved 2018) treats neuroendocrine tumours. Companion diagnostic: Netspot (FDA-approved 2016).

Pluvicto (lutetium Lu-177 vipivotide tetraxetan; Novartis; FDA-approved 2022) treats advanced prostate cancer. Companion diagnostic: Pylarify (Lantheus; FDA-approved 2021).

My Toolkit

1. DNA as a Delivery Vehicle

Figure 3. DNA as a Versatile Scaffold. Left: Standard DNA, represented as stacked Lego bricks in green and blue, serves as genetic code. Right: Modified DNA, with new yellow bricks introduced, becomes multipurpose. A radioactive payload attaches to the modified brick, demonstrating how DNA can be engineered to carry therapeutic cargo to specific locations.

Most people know DNA as genetic code. But DNA can also be a building material, like Lego.

We can introduce new “bricks” and arrange them to carry radioactive metals to precise locations. This is the major arc of my work.

How DNA works as Lego (technical, click to expand)

We introduce modified nucleotide triphosphates (new bricks) and create new configurations like aptamers or therapeutic sequences (new structures) for diagnosis or therapy (our needs).

My Research (Click to expand)

5. Selection of M²⁺-Independent RNA-Cleaving DNAzymes. ChemBioChem 2022. Read it here

1. Synthesis and ¹⁸F-Radiolabeling of Thymidine AMBF₃. RSC Med Chem 2020. Read it here

2. Peptides: Small Proteins That Find Cancer

Figure 4. Targeted Radiotherapy: Selectivity for Cancer. A targeted radiotherapy drug, shown as a key carrying a radioactive payload, recognizes cancer biomarkers displayed as locks on the cancer cell surface. The key fits the locks on cancer cells, enabling selective targeting. Healthy cells lack these locks, so the drug passes them by. Cancer cells are selectively targeted; healthy cells are spared from radiation.

Peptides are tiny protein fragments that stick to markers on cancer cell surfaces, like a key fitting a lock.

Our team designs peptides that deliver radioactive payloads directly to tumours. For prostate cancer, we are improving existing treatments to reduce side effects like dry mouth.

Targets we work on (Click to expand)

Prostate cancer (PSMA): FDA-approved, a success story. But dry mouth is a common side effect. Our work aims to spare the salivary glands.

Multiple solid tumours (FAP): Found in supportive tissue around many tumours.

Various cancers (GRP receptors): Another avenue for targeted treatment.

My Research (Click to expand)

15. Bombesin analogs for GRP receptor-expressing cancer. Pharmaceuticals 2025. Read it here

13. First-of-its-kind FAP-targeted radiotheranostic. Eur. J. Med. Chem. 2024. Read it here

11. PSMA-targeted radioligands to reduce off-target uptake. Theranostics 2023. Read it here

3. Nature’s Pharmacy: Learning from Toxins

Figure 5. Nature’s Pharmacy: Leveraging Toxins as Drugs. From left to right: The Destroying Angel mushroom, a natural product containing one of nature’s deadliest toxins. The toxin is harnessed and modified, then attached to a targeting key to form a targeted therapy. The key delivers the toxin specifically to cancer cells, achieving selective killing. Who is the real Destroying Angel now?

The death cap mushroom and its relatives, Destroying Angels, produce one of nature’s deadliest toxins. Throughout history, they have killed emperors.

We are redirecting that toxin to kill cancer instead. Who is the real Destroying Angel now?

My Research (Click to expand)

6. Rationally designed amanitins achieve enhanced cytotoxicity. J. Med. Chem. 2022. [Cover Feature] Read it here

3. Alpha-Amanitin derivatives for antibody-drug conjugates. Chemistry – A European Journal 2021. [Cover Feature] Read it here

How Radiation Helps

Figure 6. How Radiation Helps: Up Close. A targeted radiotherapy drug, shown as a key with a radioactive payload, binds to cancer biomarkers on a tumour. The radiation emits only about 1 mm, destroying cancer cells while sparing surrounding tissue. Theranostic isotopes serve dual purposes: diagnostic isotopes like ¹⁸F and ⁶⁸Ga enable PET imaging, while ¹¹¹In enables SPECT imaging. Therapeutic isotopes like ¹⁷⁷Lu (β^– therapy) and ²²⁵Ac (α therapy) deliver cell-killing radiation. The same targeting key can carry either, allowing doctors to first find the cancer, then treat it.

“Radioactive” sounds scary. But therapeutic radiation travels only about one millimetre, roughly the thickness of a credit card. It kills cancer cells without reaching healthy tissue.

The same molecule can find the cancer and treat it. This is called theranostics: therapy and diagnostics combined.

From Lab to Patient

Figure 7. From Lab to Patient. Top (Expectation): A clean, linear path from synthesis to biological testing to clinical trial to institutional approval. Bottom (Reality): A tangled, iterative process with loops back to earlier stages, failed experiments, budget constraints, repeated trials (n = 3), statistical hurdles (P = 0.05), Reviewer 2 rejections, lots of coffee, and institutional review before finally reaching approval. Reality is already simplified here.

Drug discovery is not a straight line. It is iterative, messy, agonizing, but rewarding.

My work is in the preclinical phase. Getting treatments to patients also requires regulatory strategy and entrepreneurship. Scientific innovation alone is not enough.

The goal: treatments that reach everyone who needs them.

Passing the Torch

Figure 8. UBC iGEM Team. UBC iGEM: Fueled by 67 jokes. Powered by far more ideas.

I’d rather be a comma than a full stop.
– “Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall”, Mylo Xyloto (2011), Coldplay

Science advances when knowledge is shared.

I serve on the Training and Education Committee of a national nuclear medicine consortium. I mentor UBC iGEM student teams. In 2024, we won the sustainability prize for DNA-based digital data storage.

The treatments we have today exist because of work done decades ago by people we will never meet. The groundwork we lay now will enable advancements we cannot yet imagine. This is why I do what I do.

Learn More

Scientific Interests: technical version
Publications: full list
Regulatory Science: how regulation shapes drug design
Entrepreneurship: translating science to patients
Mentorship: supporting the next generation

Questions? Contact me.