While a UNCG doctoral student at JSNN, Richard Vestal ’10 MS, ’15 PhD focuses on identifying ways to target cancer cells, with the goal of reducing the pain and suffering associated with chemotherapy and radiation treatments by improving the deliverability of cancer therapies.
As he explained in a UNCG Magazine story, his father died as a result of Glioblastoma – and at JSNN, he was able to conduct research to help those diagnosed in the future. His research in this area was published in “Current Trends in Medicinal Chemistry” and cell line studies in “Science Advances Today.”
More recently, he has designed a vaccine for the Zika virus. He received a provisional patent and is developing a rapid detection kit for the Zika virus as chief science officer at Geneotec located in Texas.