Spider alum works to kill cancer cells

Nathan Rockwell, ’14, spends his days trying to kill cancer cells — and learning the many ways they refuse to die.

As a senior scientist with biotech company MOMA Therapeutics, Rockwell experiments on and cultures breast and prostate cancer cells. “We do a lot of work to try to understand what makes the cancer grow and how we can kill it,” he says. A day in the lab includes treating cells with a promising therapy and using gene-editing technology to mimic the potential effects of a not-yet-created drug.

It’s painstaking work, fraught with failure. But he considers it a privilege.

“Part of the reason I chose being a scientist over being a doctor is I love the discovery,” Rockwell says. “I love that I can go to work every day and know that I can learn something that no one has ever known before. And I get to be a forever student.”

Rockwell, a biochemistry and molecular biology major, thrived in the research labs at Gottwald Science Center. He carried those foundational lessons to MOMA. “Never discount the utility of what you’re learning on any day,” he says, advice than transcends the classroom. Today, Rockwell spends about 70% of his time benchside, poring over test tubes and petri dishes. The other 30% of the time he’s analyzing the results of his experiments and mocking up slides. The data he shares with MOMA stakeholders may lead to clinical trials.

“It’s always been really important to me that my work be impactful,” Rockwell says. “We’re building a product that nobody ever wants to take but has the potential, if not to save someone’s life, to give them good years. To be able to devote the minutiae of every day to the possibility that somebody’s loved one is going to get some extra time is incredibly motivating.”