Exhaustion creeps in. Appetite vanishes. Hair thins. The person in the mirror looks gaunt. It’s the paradox of cancer treatment: The same drugs meant to save a life can also wear the body down. Nick Housley, assistant professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Biological Sciences, wants to change that. He studies where cancer drugs go once they’re inside the body, including places they were never intended to reach. Some of the medicine finds the tumor. The rest interacts with healthy tissue.

This approach has saved millions of lives. It can also create punishing side effects. “The problem isn’t that these drugs don’t work,” said Housley. “It’s that they affect far more of the body than they need to.”