David Uehling - Assistant Professor, Status

Area of Research

I am focused on the discovery and development of small molecule inhibitors of biological targets relevant to oncology therapeutics. I am particularly interested in agents which disrupt protein-protein interactions, as well as proximity inducing agents.

Research Challenge

Our key challenge is to be able to identify cell permeable drugs that bind to novel, previously unvalidated biological targets to impact their function, especially those outside of the classic targets space that have been previously drugged.

Proposed Solution

We would like to address how we can apply bioinformatic and machine learning early to both prioritize promising targets and identify drug leads. We also are interested in bridging our knowledge of traditional drug discovery with new methods to identify promising ligands that can be optimized to drugs suitable for IND-enabling studies. 

Impact to Date

At GSK, I led chemistry teams that discovered clinically tested and/or marketed drugs including lurtotecan and dabrafenib for cancer, and solebegron for urinary incontinence. While at OICR, I have helped lead chemistry efforts to identify drugs for novel protein-protein interaction targets such as BCL-6 and WDR5 that have helped spur collaborative partnerships with Pharma.

Keywords: Protein-protein interactions, kinases, phosphatases, cancer target validation, medicinal chemistry