Thursday 28 December 2017

Gary Cantor strives for PhD at UNC

Gary Cantor
Gary Cantor was just a child when his dreams toward medical research were born. Now in his 20s, Coral Springs, Florida native Gary Cantor is a fourth year PhD candidate at the Durham, N.C. area University of North Carolina, studying to attain this goal.

Gary Cantor knew as just a young teenager, admiring his mentor Dr. Aubrey DeGrey, that he wanted to work within research. He was certain that he could make an impactful difference from a lab -- discovering ways to improve damaged DNA or other pieces of the human “code” toward living a healthful life. Now, he nears completion of his studies at UNC in its genetics and molecular department, growing closer and closer to working within the field full-time and making those dreams a reality.

Tuesday 25 July 2017

The Education of Gary Cantor Durham

Gary Cantor
Gary Cantor Durham grew up as an avid and strong chess player. In junior high school, Gary Cantor Durham won the chess championships for two years running. He was also active in other sports, including playing golf, soccer, and football in high school. Durham ran track and field in high school as well. Later he would practice Jiu Jitsu, take Krav Maga lessons, and do weightlifting as well.

Durham performed his undergraduate studies at the University of Florida, studying biology. Later he got involved in research, which was his true aim. During his time at the University of Florida he interned at a company called Genentech and worked in their Translational Oncology department. He worked on a project doing treatments for Triple Negative Breast Cancer.

Gary Cantor Durham was accepted into the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he enrolled in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program (BBSP). He was ecstatic to be able to join this prominent program and immediately began looking for ways to begin research on the cure for aging. Today, Durham can’t imagine dedicating his life to any other cause. After spending a year in the BBSP, an umbrella program at UNC, he would join the Genetics and Molecular Biology department there. He is currently a 4th year Ph.D. candidate and still a firm believer that aging can be cured.

Thursday 20 April 2017

Gary Cantor, Durham, NC Medical Researcher

It is the case that Gary Cantor studied biology at the University of Florida as a teenager because he wanted to become a medical researcher at some point. It is also the case that, even now, while still only in his 20s and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Carolina, he already has significant experience in that field. He began working in his
first lab when he was still a teenager and, on summer, while still at Florida, he traveled to San Francisco for a four-month internship for Genentech in their Translational Oncology department, where he worked on a very important treatment for breast cancer.

Looking back, it seems as if all of this was a natural fit. He always knew he wanted a career in medicine, since he was a young boy growing up in Coral Springs, Florida, and he became enthralled by a medical reality show on TV. At first, he admired the coolness on the doctors on that show, especially the surgeons. He knew he wanted to save lives when he grew up and that medicine was the way to do that. That dream was altered slightly when he was 13 and he came upon a YouTube video from a medical researcher who convinced the young boy that medical research was the key to everything.

The doctor who posted that video, Dr. Aubrey de Grey, is a biomedical gerontologist who believes strongly that medical research can create life expectancies as high as 1,000 years. He corresponded with Dr. de Grey and realized that he wanted to do that type of research. These days, Gary Cantor, Durham researcher, can envision the human body as an advanced computer As such, he firmly believes that anyone with knowledge of its instruction manual (genome), can possibly make the computer run forever. These days, Gary works in the Genetics and Molecular Biology Department at the University of North Carolina, where he, at the tender age of 26 and a Ph.D. candidate, feels that he is just beginning to move medical science forward.

Sunday 15 January 2017

Gary Cantor’s great biomedical gerontologist mentor

In his youth, current Durham, NC, resident Gary Cantor learned a love for the medical field from the television. But a love of research, which became his lifelong passion and pursuit that he studies today at UNC Chapel Hill, that emerged from a YouTube video of his mentor biomedical gerontologist Dr. Aubrey De Grey who researched longevity in humans. Cantor was fascinated and held onto those ideas, even thanking De Grey for giving him a true purpose in life and career once he reached graduate school. Today, Gary Cantor studies research, DNA and similar ideas in the Genetics and Molecular Biology Department of UNC Chapel Hill as a fourth year PhD candidate.