UNMC professor uses tattoos to honor students’ research

OMAHA (KETV) — Tattoos are more than body art for a University of Nebraska Medical Center professor — they’re a way to showcase his students’ accomplishments in pharmaceutical science.

Dr. Corey Hopkins, a professor in UNMC’s Center for Drug Design and Innovation, uses tattoos of chemical compounds to celebrate milestones in his students’ research.

“We have to change our key so that it fits the lock perfectly,” graduate student Fahad Rahman said, describing how compounds work as potential drugs. “The lock is the target of the cell that we are trying to reach, and keys are our compounds.”

Pharmaceutical science, Hopkins admits, isn’t everyone’s favorite subject. “To make a drug, you sometimes have to make 5 or 6,000 individual chemicals,” he said.

To honor that work, Hopkins began tatto