PhD
Research Assistant Professor, Eshelman Innovation
UNC-Chapel Hill
Cancer Therapeutics Research Program
Area of Interest
I work where cancer is most stubborn. Two areas guide me. First is therapy resistant prostate cancer. I am drugging the lipid kinase PIP5K1A to cut PIP2 supply upstream of PI3K AKT and quiet the adaptive loops that blunt AKT drugs. The plan is clean design, selective chemistry, and hard readouts. I pair structure guided discovery and machine learning multi parameter optimization with DMPK and pathway biomarkers. Testing moves from enzalutamide resistant lines to patient derived explants and mouse studies. PK PD and tumor levels are measured together with clear go no go rules. The finish line is an oral candidate that survives real world filters.
Second is pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. I am building a hypoxia activated prodrug platform that stays quiet in blood and turns on inside the low oxygen pancreas. This lets us carry potent warheads only where they are needed and spare normal tissue. Leads are tuned for stability, switch like activation, and pancreas delivery. Assays start in organoids and 3D spheroids and move to rigorous in vivo models and combinations with current care.
Across both programs the theme is simple chemistry choices tied to human biology and translation, using strong collaborations at UNC and Duke to turn ideas into candidates.
