He obtained his M.S. degree in chemistry from Wake Forest University in 1997 and Ph.D. degree in chemistry from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 2002. He was a post-doctoral researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory about one and half years before joining to Schering-Plough Corporation, NJ as an investigator. He is currently a researcher at Sabanci University Nanotechnology Research & Application Center (SUNUM). His current research focuses on the applications of surface-enhanced Raman scattering in medicine: cancer diagnosis, detection and identification of pathogens, biofilms and proteins; synthesis, self-assembly and applications of novel nanomaterials and nanocarriers for delivery of cancer therapeutics; nanomedicine and nanomaterial surface chemistry nanotoxicity relationship.