Angelo Andres

Angelo Andres has always had a passion for helping others. The idea of discovering and developing drugs, changing the field of medicine and saving lives excites him. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve in 2008 as a means to both serve his country and pursue a career.

During his eight years with the reserve, he served as a preventive medicine specialist, performing air, water and environmental quality assessments to determine health risks to troops overseas. He also worked full-time while attending Miami Dade College.

In 2011 Angelo was deployed to Afghanistan for Operation Enduring Freedom. There he performed preventive medicine duties in the country’s largest tuberculosis patient detention facility. He rose to the rank of specialist, earning an Afghanistan Campaign Medal and Army Commendation Medal, among other awards.

After returning home, Angelo struggled with transitioning to civilian life and losing his sergeant to suicide. Angelo credits this dark time with motivating him to use his life to make a difference in the world.

After enrolling at FIU in 2013, Angelo met Professor Yuk-Ching Tse-Dinh and researcher Arasu Annamalai. He conducted investigations alongside them in the Biomolecular Sciences Institute to discover new antibiotics to combat tuberculosis. Angelo will pursue a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry at the University of Kansas and wants to dedicate his career to developing anticancer drugs in honor of his uncle, Ricardo, who passed away from a rare form of thyroid cancer.