The company’s technology and therapeutic focus are derived from groundbreaking research in the mid-1980s by Philip Low, Ph.D., a biochemist at Purdue University, who discovered a previously unknown pathway used by vitamins to enter plant cells.  Extending this discovery to animal cells, Dr. Low together with fellow Purdue biochemist Chris Leamon, Ph.D., (now VP of Research at Endocyte) explored opportunities to combine drugs with vitamins.  In this strategy, the vitamin would “carry” an attached drug directly to targeted cells and then into the targeted cell's interior using a normal pathway for vitamin uptake.