Meet a Globe-Trotting Chemist and Builder of “Smart Molecules”

Jayawickramarajah taking a “selfie” with “The Bean,” a large, highly reflective sculpture in Chicago Credit: Janarthanan Jayawickramarajah Janarthanan Jayawickramarajah Born in: Kandy, Sri Lanka Job site: Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana Alternate career choice: Anthropologist Favorite sports teams: Sri Lanka national cricket team, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tar Heels basketball, New Orleans Saints football Favorite weekend activity: Strolling through parks with his wife and two kids and stopping for coffee and beignets (a New Orleans treat, a lot like a doughnut covered in powdered sugar) In a way, Janarthanan Jayawickramarajah is like an architect. But rather than sketching plans for homes or buildings, he creates molecules designed to detect and destroy cancer cells. From Sri Lanka and Bahrain to the southern United States, wherever he lives or travels, he always finds scientific inspiration in architecture. In 2014, he and his family saw towering mosques and winding palaces in Istanbul, Turkey. “It was amazing to see these really old buildings that were created when technology was so limited,” he says. “It motivated me to work hard and think inward, not about making architectural structures but complex biological ones.” Unlike traditional chemotherapy that leads to uncomfortable side effects by slowing the growth of healthy cells along with cancer cells, Jayawickramarajah’s “smart molecules” are designed to...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Being a Scientist Chemistry and Biochemistry Profiles Smart Molecule Source Type: blogs