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Students often find that certain college professors leave a lasting impact, not only through their teaching but also by encouraging students’ growth and success.

Nathan Tumey, a medicinal chemist and associate professor at the ������ɫ School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, is one of those teachers. Known for his interactive approach and love of science, Tumey hopes his students discover that “science involves hard work, but is also a lot of fun.”

Tumey joined the School of Pharmacy in 2017, after working 15 years in the pharmaceutical industry. In addition to teaching courses such as Introduction to Pharmacology and Integrated Pharmacotherapy VIII, he leads a research lab focused on antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), a technology used in developing cancer medications.

Watching students grow is one of the most fulfilling parts of Tumey’s job.

“I really enjoy seeing our graduate students move from understanding science to proposing their own scientific ideas,” he says. “It’s exciting for me to see a student progress from a textbook-based understanding to proposing meaningful projects and ideas.”

Tumey earned a bachelor of science in chemistry from King University in 1997 and a PhD in chemistry from Duke University in 2001. He began his career as a research scientist at Athersys Inc., then worked at Pfizer from 2005–2017.

He left the pharmaceutical industry because he wanted to apply ADC technology to diseases beyond cancer, and the industry was not open to that at the time: “A lot of more innovative, therapeutic ideas tend to come out of academia,” he says. “I thought that maybe in an academic setting I could continue to pursue that idea in a way that I couldn’t in an industrial setting.”

Tumey finds ������ɫ engaging due to its size, resources and his colleagues. At Pfizer, Tumey worked on making ADC drugs more stable and reproducible, while his current lab aims to apply ADCs to conditions like immunological disorders, organ transplants and infectious diseases, with the goal of advancing the work into clinical trials.

“A lot of my research projects center on building a data package that is attractive to investors and companies that will hopefully license the technology, bring in some money to the University and into my research lab, but also will help the project move forward into the clinic in a way that I just couldn’t do on my own,” Tumey says.