Lantheus Luminaries offers a closer look at the people and processes that make our purpose to Find, Fight and Follow® disease possible.
Meet Paul L., Research Investigator
Our commitment to improving patient outcomes is keenly felt in our labs, where Lantheus products are developed, optimized and validated. Throughout that process, the safety of patients falls directly in the hands of medical lab team members like Paul L., a Research Investigator.
A key skill for success is to be able to communicate and pivot if needed. It allows us to execute impactful, complex and time-sensitive research.
Paul began working in life sciences while pursuing a PhD at Tufts University. With a background in material science and analytical chemistry, a career focused on advancements to improve efficiency of cancer radiotherapy was a natural transition. Paul joined the Lantheus team in 2023 and quickly became an integral part of our daily lab work.
An essential role in patient safety
For Paul, a typical day revolves around providing essential analytical support to our Process Development team. This team is responsible for synthesizing batches of a drug product, and Paul’s team then analyzes those products to determine if those synthetic process modifications have improved the products’ quality and stability. In short, the specifics of Paul’s role can vary, but at its core, their function is to ensure patient safety.
Collaboration is critical in this task. Paul’s team works closely—and quickly—together. Due to the half-life of radioisotopes, the window they have to work with drug products is very narrow. To gain an accurate understanding of whether an experiment was successful, they often have a matter of minutes.
Beyond the lab, Paul engages with Lantheus’ global manufacturing network as a subject matter expert (SME), ensuring the smooth implementation of new analytical processes for quality control testing.
Personal and professional motivations
At every step of the way, Paul is motivated by the same purpose that drives each of us on the Lantheus team. Paul has lost several family members to cancer and Alzheimer’s and knows firsthand how devastating these diseases are for patients and their families. As Paul puts it, knowing their work helps safely provide diagnostic information to patients is what gets them out of bed every day.
Supporting the commercialization of two Alzheimer’s diagnostic agents is the most rewarding scientific effort I’ve been a part of.
While this work fulfills Paul’s personal and professional motivations to advance science, they find time outside of the lab to flex the creative side of their brain. Paul spends much of their time cooking and baking sourdough bread with their partner, Nick, or tending to their 70+ houseplants and ever-expanding garden.
Additionally, one of Paul’s favorite pastimes is exploring their practice in the yoga studio. Paul has found that investing time and energy into oneself and the important people in one’s life can help keep things in perspective.
Paul has tapped into something that is true for each of us on the Lantheus team: maintaining perspective is crucial. When we enjoy our own personal time and relationships, we’re reminded of how our work impacts patients’ ability to do the same.
Paul’s dedication to our work, mirrored by countless others in our labs, underscores the vital role that R&D professionals play in bringing our purpose to life.
