"It comes back to trying to address people issues," said [DEREK TAN Chemist], who heads a research lab at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and also serves as an advisory board member to the Manhattan office of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

The lab the Harvard Ph.D. began two years ago "is trying to find molecules that we can use as tools to study cancer biology and to identify new therapeutic targets for treating cancer in a more selective fashion," Tan said.