About Us

Our lab aims to develop molecular and cellular solutions to address important challenges in the biomedical sciences and clinical medicine, especially in the areas of imaging and diagnostics. We create small molecules, engineered proteins and cell-based tools that can "light up" and control in vivo biology using principles of chemical and synthetic biology. When possible, our technologies are translated to the clinic using nuclear medicine and molecular imaging techniques. For example, our group recently pioneered the development, preclinical testing, and human application of a new class of positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracers based on the small molecule antibiotic trimethoprim. These molecules have diverse applications in our broad fields of investigation including cancer biology, immunology, and infectious disease. If you have any questions about who we are and what we do, don't hesitate to reach out to us!
 

 

Announcements

  • Recent publications!

    The lab is ending the year with a slew of new publications! Congrats to all working on Anthony's Molecular Imaging & Biology paper on 11C-trimethoprim human biodistribution, Jonathan's npj Imaging perspective on clinical translation of adoptive cell therapy PET imaging, Nitika's Nature Communications manuscript on photoresponsive trimethoprim-PROTACs, and Hwan's Journal of Nuclear Medicine paper on the impact of subcellular localization on alpha particle cytotoxicity. Click here for links to these papers. Congrats again to all!

  • SNMMI Mars Shot Award

    The lab was awarded a Mars Shot Innovator's Grant from the SNMMI to support our work on improving antibody-based radiopharmaceuticals using tetrazine-TCO click chemistry. Congratulations to Mark and Swarbhanu and thank you to the SNMMI for their support!

  • Congrats to Gabrielle and Lily on their graduations!

    A big congratulations to Gabrielle for a successful thesis defense and tenure in the Sellmyer Lab! We're looking forward to everything she will accomplish as she heads home to San Diego. Congratulations also to Lily for completing her undergraduate studies in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Biophysics, and Chemistry! We're excited to be able to keep Lily for another year as a research technician in the laboratory.