Under the direction of Curator’s Professor of Physics and Radiology Kattesh Katti, MU student Pierce Bloebaum is conducting promising new research in nanomedicine. He is testing how cancerous cells are affected by drug-carrying gold nanoparticles.
Nov. 8, 2017
“The goal is to be able to get these nanoparticles to only target the cancerous cells and leave the healthy cells unharmed,” he says.
The project was funded by a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (NSF REU) grant. In recognition of Bloebaum’s high-quality work, the national Council on Undergraduate Research invited him to present his findings at the NSF headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia in October 2017.
Bloebaum hopes to continue his research after graduation and is looking into Mizzou’s exchange program with the University of Western Cape in South Africa. “MU is one of the only places in the world where this type of research is going on, and I would like to stay here if I could,” he says. “I really like the research I’m doing. I love my lab, and I’d like to continue doing that as long as I can.”
Bloebaum is a senior physics and math double major from St. Peters, Missouri.
