Ken Pearce, Ph D is the director of the Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery. Pearce’s primary expertise and interests are fundamentals of protein methods, biochemical and cell assay development, medium- and high-throughput screening, hit validation and mode-of-action, biophysical methods for characterizing protein-protein and small molecule-protein interactions, and structure-activity relationships for early drug discovery. He joined the center as director of lead discovery and characterization in mid-2015 after spending over 18 years at GlaxoSmithKline and legacy companies in the Molecular Discovery Research organization.
Pearce started his career in anti-infectives discovery at SmithKline Beecham where he studied the cell division protein ftsZ and other essential cell division proteins as potential anti-microbial drug targets. At GlaxoSmithKline, Pearce worked on and led numerous drug discovery efforts for a variety of target classes and therapeutic areas. The majority of his research at GlaxoSmithKline was focused on signal transduction and small molecule modulation of nuclear receptors. He led and contributed to numerous efforts in this area that led to novel drug candidates for cancer and menopausal symptoms (estrogen receptor alpha), metabolic disorders (estrogen-related receptor alpha) and asthma and inflammatory diseases (glucocorticoid receptor). One particular discovery effort included a comprehensive analysis of multiple nuclear receptors and modulating ligands by conformation-sensing peptides utilizing phage display and multiplexed fluorescent bead analysis. For the glucocorticoid receptor, which is one of the most studied and highly validated drug targets for immune-related diseases, these efforts led to the first reported crystal structure and characterization of several marketed products (fluticasone propionate and fluticasone furoate), as well as support for a nonsteroidal agonist program.
For the past several years, Pearce has initiated and led a multi-target program for drug discovery for the proprotein convertase family of enzymes.