Brianna Vickerman still remembers her graduate school dancing-in-the-lab moment.
While researching light-activated therapeutics, a potentially groundbreaking way to make drug delivery safer and more effective, Vickerman kept failing at activating a particular peptide using light. Peptides, molecules containing two or more amino acids, play an essential role in fundamental physiological processes.
“That was a moment when you think to yourself, ‘This has never been done before. Maybe there’s a reason why,’” said the Eshelman Innovation Research Assistant Professor during the inaugural episode of “North Carolina Innovators You Should Know,” a video series hosted by Eshelman Innovation Executive Director John Bamforth.
“I stepped back and looked at the problem in a different way. I looked into the origins of this peptide. It’s actually naturally synthesized in honeybees,” she said.
By considering not just what the peptide does, but what it was originally made to do, Vickerman overcame the hurdle by devising a different strategy for synthesizing a version that was light activatable. Then came the dancing.
