Aidan Wirrick came to the University of Missouri from Ballwin, Missouri, as a motivated freshman looking to fully embrace the 30,000-foot view. With a father in microbiology and a mother in communications at a manufacturing company, he had been exposed to varied career paths as a youngster.

At Mizzou, Wirrick broadened his perspective even further. Initially a pre-med major, he enjoyed an academic “sampler platter” of chemistry, biological sciences, psychological sciences — you name it. Then he enrolled in the Student Training for Advancing Research (STAR) program through the Office of Undergraduate Research and discovered his passion for hands-on research.

Thanks to STAR — and a summer internship at the renowned Cleveland Clinic — Wirrick joined the MU Molecular Imaging and Theranostics Center as a junior where he worked with Carolyn Anderson, Simon-Ellebracht Professor in Medicinal Chemistry and professor of radiology. There, he researched targeted radiopharmaceutical cancer therapies supplied by the MU Research Reactor (MURR) and parlayed that experience into a summer 2022 internship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center — which is affiliated with Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. After graduation, he is headed back to Cornell to pursue a PhD.