An international magazine focused on high school students contacts a renowned professor to interest kids in science. Sounds like the setup for a joke. But for Tom Anchordoquy, PhD, it's real life, and it allowed him to showcase his work and his team to a whole new audience — who may someday build on his research.
Meet "Dr. A"
Dr. Anchordoquy, Dr. “A” to many of his students, loves to learn. He radiates a love for education, the type of energy that fills a room, draws you in, and invites you to stay for dinner. Anchordoquy has spent his career in academia, researching, teaching, and mentoring. Since 1993, he's tirelessly worked in pharmaceutical sciences and in the past decade, he's fine-tuned his focus to pharmaceutical delivery methods. His lab has created anticancer cream, eyedrops, ointments, and injectables that utilize small molecules to treat a plethora of conditions. Anchordoquy never accepts the status quo, and he never stops asking 'why?'
"I've had a long career," he said. "When these young, curious students walk into my office and they say, 'what if we do it this way?' I'm here to help them figure that out. We can try new things; we can see it from a new perspective."
Anchordoquy sees value in curiosity.
"That's what it takes to be a scientist," he said. "You have to be curious; you have to look at something and say, 'I wonder why that is,' and then be willing to put in the work to find out. That’s how discoveries happen."
Dr. A, the Mentor
Anchordoquy is happy to take students under his wing; as long as they are willing to put in their time and allow themselves to keep asking questions. So, when Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14 to19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, math, and medicine (STEM), reached out to him about his work, he decided to do the interview.
High school students are not his normal audience. He's an award-winning researcher recognized for his innovative approach to drug delivery and reducing side effects of chemotherapy. Getting younger students interested in science? He felt that was a worthy goal and a way to pay it forward. In Anchordoquy's rapidly changing field, he hopes that young scientists will eventually take his research further, inspire new work, and create new products for patients struggling with often deadly diseases.
Meet the Team
Anchordoquy assembled his colleagues and protégés to talk about their research with Futurum. The magazine wanted to specifically discuss work he did with Drs. Scott Tilden, Madison Ricco, and Dmitri Simberg. Tilden and Ricco are both former students; Simberg is a fellow professor at CU Pharmacy, focused on nanomedicine. Their research project caught the Futurum editorial team's attention because of its groundbreaking nature.
“Instead of focusing on drug delivery (getting more chemotherapy to the target tumor), this technique was more about reducing the side effects of chemotherapy, like losing hair, nausea and lack of appetite,” Anchordoquy said. The new technique pioneered by the team takes advantage of a natural response to viral infection to reduce uptake of virus-sized particles in healthy tissues. By triggering this response prior to cancer treatment, the deposition of small, drug-containing particles is selectively reduced in healthy tissues, which results in fewer side effects that permit more aggressive dosing. It also causes more of the drug to accumulate in the tumor tissues, thereby enhancing the effectiveness of chemotherapy.
When talking with Futurum, Anchordoquy was adamant that everyone on the research team be represented, all be featured in the materials, and have an opportunity to talk about their contributions.
"This isn't just my work," Anchordoquy said. "This is their work, and I want to encourage them to keep going. To keep being curious and push the work forward."
With these new educational materials, Anchordoquy is not just mentoring students in his lab at CU Pharmacy but sparking scientific curiosity in students around the world. If one student is inspired to learn more and join the field of pharmaceutical sciences, it will have been time well spent. As Anchordoquy explained to Futurum, there will always be disease and there will always be a need for pharmaceutical scientists.
Read the entire Futurum article here, find links to printable versions here, and checkout a free activity worksheet here. These items were produced by Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE). For more information, teaching resources, and course and career guides, see www.futurumcareers.com
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