Group Members / Luca Rustico

Luca Rustico was born and raised in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. He graduated from York University in 2025 with a B.Sc. (Specialized Honours) in Biochemistry. He joined the Hili Lab as an undergraduate student in 2024 to complete his honours thesis project, where he worked to evolve chemically diversified aptamers against protein targets. In the fall of 2025, he began his Master’s degree in Chemistry, with research focused on the development and optimization of Ligase-catalyzed OligOnucleotide PolymERization (LOOPER) as a platform for the synthesis of chemically modified and xeno-nucleic acid oligonucleotides. In his free time, Luca enjoys playing golf, building Lego sets, and watching movies.