Tim Willson
Chief Scientist, Research professor
Tim Willson is chief scientist of the SGC-UNC, an open-discovery network for protein kinases based at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He has more than 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical research with a track record in discovery of first-in-class clinical candidates. Throughout his career, Willson has been an advocate for research on pioneer drug targets. He led the Glaxo program on orphan nuclear receptors that uncovered their role in regulation of human metabolism and was co-discoverer of obeticholic acid, a breakthrough medicine for liver diseases targeting FXR. Willson has been a long time supporter of precompetitive chemistry in early drug discovery and was a scientific founder of the SGC Epigenetic Chemical Probes project. He is widely recognized for scientific leadership in chemical biology and was named one of the world’s 400 most influential biomedical researchers. Outside of science, Willson enjoys the challenge of long course triathlons and has completed eleven Ironman 70.3 distance races. Bibliography Link
David Drewry
Research Associate Professor
David Drewry, Ph.D., is a renowned leader in the medicinal chemistry of protein kinases and is one of the principal architects of the research strategy at the SGC-UNC to build an open and collaborative research network to promote target discovery. He previously enjoyed more than 24 years as a medicinal chemist with GlaxoSmithKline and legacy companies, where he led teams working across the preclinical spectrum of drug discovery. His research interests include the art and science of medicinal chemistry, kinase inhibitor design, utilization of annotated sets of kinase inhibitors to build understanding of signaling networks and precompetitive chemical biology to facilitate target identification. After earning a Bachelor’s of Science degree, cum laude, in chemistry from Yale University, Drewry earned his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley in the laboratory of Paul Bartlett, working on the design, synthesis and mechanistic studies of zinc protease inhibitors. Drewry spent one year as the head of chemistry at Meryx Pharmaceuticals, a biotech startup focused on small-molecule inhibitors of Mer kinase that was a spinoff from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Bibliography Link
Alison Axtman
Assistant Professor
Alison Axtman, Ph.D., is a principal investigator in medicinal chemistry at SGC-UNC and Assistant Professor in the Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry Department in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Her interests lie at the interface of chemistry and biology, with a focus on using small molecules to explore and impact disease-propagating biological pathways, especially those that cause neurodegenerative diseases. Active projects are aimed at finding pre-clinical small molecule candidates that address the need for new therapeutics in the areas of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), among others. She joined SGC-UNC after working at GlaxoSmithKline on the Chemical Biology team at the RTP site. Before that, Axtman completed her doctorate at the University of Kansas in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry with Brian Blagg and postdoctoral studies at Stanford University in the laboratory of Paul Wender. She is eager to enable the efforts of other investigators through sharing high-quality small molecule tools to speed the drug discovery process and more quickly help patients in need. Bibliography Link
Kim Swain
Center Administrator
Kim Swain moved to NC in 2015, after living in Vermont for 40 years. She previously worked in the field of Physician Recruitment at the University of Vermont Department of Surgery and Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford, CT.
Frances Bashore
research assistant professor
Frances (Frankie) Bashore (née Potjewyd) is a Research Assistant Professor at the Structural Genomics Consortium site at UNC (SGC-UNC) in the division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry. Frankie completed her PhD in Medicinal Chemistry at The University of Strathclyde, UK. She continued research as a Chemical Biology Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery (CICBDD) at UNC, under the supervision of Prof Stephen Frye and Prof Lindsey James. Postdoctoral research focused on the design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of Proteolysis Targeting Chimeras (PROTACs) for epigenetic regulators such as Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2). Her second Postdoctoral Research position focused on developing chemical probes for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) targets, under the supervision of Prof Alison Axtman at the SGC-UNC. Frankie’s current research is focused on enabling cellular assays to facilitate the discovery of potent and selective chemical probes and PROTACs.
Anwar Hossain
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Anwar obtained his Master of Pharmacy degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Amarillo, Texas, USA. During his Ph.D. program, Anwar worked under the supervision of Dr. Nadezhda German to develop bioactive small molecules. His doctoral research involved the design, synthesis, and in-vitro assay of quorum-sensing inhibitors. The structure-activity relationship studies of fungal metabolite gliotoxin guided him to develop novel opioid receptor antagonists. He has significant experience in the design, synthesis, characterization, and biological evaluation of small molecules.
Zachary Davis-Gilbert
Research Associate
Zach earned his bachelor's degree from Appalachian State University. Post-Baccalaureate he spent one year working at GlaxoSmithKline in RTP, working on PKIS under the tutelage of Carrow Wells and Dr. David Drewry. Afterwards he received a Ph.D. in Organometallics from the University of Minnesota where his research was focused on titanium catalyzed C-N bond forming reactions
Stefanie Howell
Research Associate
Stefanie received her Bachelor’s degree and Master of Science degree from NC State University in Biology. She has worked as a Research Associate at the University of North Carolina since 2015 and joined SGC-UNC in July 2021. She has extensive research experience in cellular and molecular biology and is skilled in laboratory techniques specifically used for investigating the role of genetic mutations in human disease.
Nandakumar Meganathan
postdoctoral research associate
Nandakumar earned his Ph.D. in 2015 with the guidance of Prof. A. K. Mohanakrishnan at the University of Madras, India. After graduation, he moved to NTHU, Taiwan to explore organometallic synthesis with Prof. Yun Chi. Then he moved University of Bristol, UK as a Marie-Curie postdoctoral research fellow to peruse research on lithiation-borylation chemistry with Prof. Varinder. K. Aggarwal. Then he pursued further postdoctoral research with Prof. Jennifer L. Roizen at Duke University to explored photoredox-mediated strategies. He joined the SGC-UNC in July 2021.
Benjamin Strickland
Doctoral Student
Benjamin graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in 2021 with a major in biochemistry and molecular biology. During his undergraduate, his thesis focused on methods of targeting the cellular division protein FtsZ for the treatment of multidrug-resistant S. aureus in Dr. Vincent Gullo’s lab. He joined SGC-UNC in 2022 and is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry program.
Jacob Capener
Doctoral Student
Jacob obtained his Bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Utah. During his undergraduate, he studied cellular signaling mechanisms within the Hedgehog pathway in Benjamin Myers' lab. He joined the SGC in 2022 and is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry program.
Peter J Brown
Research Project Manager
Peter received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Sheffield and performed postdoctoral research at Indiana University with Philip Magnus culminating in the total synthesis of (-)-Pleiomutine, a bis-indole alkaloid. Prior to joining the SGC in 2009, Peter spent nineteen years at GlaxoSmithKline in various roles, most recently Section Head, Medicinal Chemistry, and was focused on the early Hit-ID phase of Drug Discovery and finding tool compounds for the Nuclear Receptor family of proteins. Peter’s research interests include using HTS, target-focused arrays, DNA Encoded Libraries, and fragment-based methods to discover probes for novel targets. SGC-Toronto has contributed 28 chemical probes, mostly for epigenetic targets. Bibliography Link
Sophia Min
Postdoctoral research associate
Sophia obtained her Master of Chemistry degree from Konkuk University, South Korea. She completed her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Jiyong Hong at Duke University and spent one more year as a research associate at Duke studying the development of inhibitors targeting mutagenic translesion synthesis and LpxH enzyme of lipid A biosynthesis. She joined the SGC-UNC in May 2022.
Brian Anderson
Doctoral student
Brian received his bachelor's degree in Biology with a minor in neuroscience from SUNY Albany, where he did undergraduate research in behavioral neuroscience/ brain metabolism. Upon graduation Brian took a laboratory technician/manager position in the laboratory of Dr. Patricia Grasso at Albany Medical College. Brian completed his M.S. from the department of Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics with a thesis studying the pharmacokinetic properties of leptin analogues aimed at treating type II diabetes. Afterword, Brian took a position as a research scientist at AMRI (now Curia), in the department of fermentation and biocatalysis. During his time at AMRI Brian worked on large scale chemistry and process optimization for production of target compounds. Brian joined the SGC in 2022 and is a second year PhD student in the Chemical Biology & Medicinal Chemistry department.
Kesatebrhan Asressu
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Kesatebrhan Haile Asressu received his M.Sc. degree in Organic Chemistry from Haramaya University, Ethiopia in July 2010. He completed his Ph.D. in Sustainable Chemical Science and Technology with specialization in Carbohydrate Chemistry under the supervision of Prof. Cheng-Chung Wang at Academia Sinica and National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan in January 2020. During his Ph.D. study, Kesatebrhan has worked in the development of synthetic methodologies for the synthesis of sialo-glycans. After his Ph.D graduation, he worked as Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute of Chemistry, Academia Sinica with Prof. Cheng-Chung Wang and has developed an efficient synthetic methods for the procurement of small molecules. Then, he moved to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), USA to further pursue a Postdoctoral Research with Prof. Qibin Zhang. During his position at UNCG, Kesatebrhan worked on the identification, quantification and synthesis of lipid standards containing very-long chain fatty acids. He joined SGC-UNC in December 2022.
Rafael Lemos Miguez Couñago
Director of Biology, Research Associate professor
Rafael M. Couñago, PhD, is a Principal Investigator at the SGC-UNC and Research Associate Professor in the Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry Department in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Rafael´s research group at SGC-UNC uses protein biochemistry, structural biology and cell-based assays to illuminate protein function and explore new therapeutic strategies for human diseases. Current research at SGC-UNC is focused on enabling the discovery of new antiviral compounds and realizing SGC´s vision for Target 2035, an open science initiative that aims to create chemical and biological tools for every protein in the human genome with the goal of informing drug discovery (https://www.target2035.net/). Rafael joined SGC-UNC after working as a Principal Investigator at the Center of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil. Prior to that, Rafael served as Team Leader and CSO at SGC-UNICAMP, and was a post-doctoral researcher at the laboratories of Bostjan Kobe at the University of Queensland, Australia; Kurt Krause at Otago University, New Zealand, and Youssif Shamoo at Rice University, USA. Rafael has a strong track record in recombinant protein production, biochemical and cellular assay development, and protein structure determination. Rafael has participated in a number of early-stage drug discovery projects in collaboration with both academic and industrial partners. Bibliography link.
Edwin Tse
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Edwin received his Bachelor’s degree with an Honours research project in catalysis from The University of Sydney in 2015. He then completed his Ph.D. at the same institution with Prof. Matthew Todd and Prof. Peter Rutledge as part of the Open Source Malaria project. He then moved to University College London as a research assistant in drug discovery leading an open source drug discovery competition to find novel antimalarials. In 2021 he began his postdoctoral research at UCL expanding his research areas to Prof. Todd’s Open Source Antibiotics and Antiviral projects. He joined SGC-UNC in May 2023.
Muthu Ramalingam
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Muthu Ramalingam received his Ph.D. from the University of Madras under the guidance of Prof. A.K. Mohanakrishnan. During his Ph.D. program, he conducted research focused on the total synthesis and SAR studies of indole alkaloids. After graduation, he moved to IIT Madras, India, to explore metal-based dehydrogenative studies with Dr. Baidya. Subsequently, he pursued further postdoctoral research with Prof. Yu Yuan at the University of Central Florida, USA, to explore the design and synthesis of macrocycles and peptidomimetics for the treatment of antimalarial compounds. He joined SGC-UNC in March 2023
Raymond Flax
DOCTORAL student
Raymond Flax, graduated from SUNY College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry, summa cum laude, with a Bachelor of Science Honors in chemistry with a focus in organic chemistry in 2022. His Honors thesis, under the pedagogy of Dr. Rachel Steinhardt at Syracuse University, was establishing stably expressing HEK293T cell lines, encoding fluorescently tagged dopamine and serotonin receptors. Alongside, dabbling in the world of medicinal chemistry, synthesizing, and evaluating photoaffinity pharmaceutical probes to identify targets of Parkinson’s drugs. Raymond now enters his second year in the chemical biology & medicinal chemistry program developing kinase inhibitors for TTBK1/2 and PAK respectively.
Anirban Ghoshal
POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
Anirban obtained his PhD from Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, India (2021) and his work was focused on the synthesis of privileged heterocycles through novel isocyanide-based multicomponent reactions. Post-PhD, he worked as a Research Scientist in TCG Lifesciences, India (2021-22) before moving to US for postdoctoral studies. He worked as a Post-doctoral Associate at University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Florida (2022-23) towards the development of novel GAK modulators. Anirban joined SGC-UNC in March 2023 and has been working towards developing small molecule drug leads within the READDI Antiviral Drug Discovery Center.
Peter Rosston
DOCTORAL student
Peter Rosston obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis (Wash U) in 2019. There he joined the lab of Dr. Kevin Moeller and worked on a project involving the total synthesis of an analog to a natural product GPCR inhibitor. After graduation, Peter moved to the Stanford Medicinal Chemistry Knowledge Center. His projects there involved the design and synthesis of a novel lanthanide chelate in collaboration with Dr. Pehr Harbury, as well as a collaboration with Dr. Michael Fischbach based around characterizing the most abundant small molecules that make up the human gut microbiome. Peter joined SGC-UNC in November, 2022 from the Department of Chemistry, and is now working with Dr. David Drewry on understudied kinases.
Jeffery Smith
Research Associate
Jeff obtained his BS in Chemistry from Northern Kentucky University and his Masters in Biochemistry & Biophysics from Texas A&M university. Jeff moved to NC in 2001 and worked for GSK focusing on SAR assays for kinases and other targets. He started with SGC-UNC during covid in the fall of 2020.
David Shirley
DOCTORAL student
David earned his Bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from Rowan University in 2019. During his undergraduate, he worked under Gregory A. Caputo studying synthesis and evaluation of amphiphilic peptides as antimicrobial agents and photovoltaic devices. He joined the SGC-UNC in 2023 as a 5th year graduate student in the Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry program working alongside Tim Willson exploring the fungal kinome.
Emily Flory
DOCTORAL STUDENT
Emily Flory graduated with a BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2023 from Utah Tech University. She worked with Dr. Rico Del Sesto synthesizing antimicrobial prodrugs and pyridinium ionic liquids. In the summer of 2022, she interned in the Caren L. Freel Meyers Lab at Johns Hopkins University synthesizing and testing novel antimicrobial agents. Post-graduation, Emily worked as a chemist at GlycoSurf, a chemical manufacturing company in Salt Lake City, until she joined the Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry PhD program at UNC. She joined SGC-UNC in 2024. Her interest in pharmaceutical sciences stemmed from her 4 years of experience working as a certified pharmacy technician during her undergraduate years.
Matt Binder
DOCTORAL STUDENT
Matt Binder graduated Summa Cum Laude from Penn State University in 2023 with a degree in chemistry (and a minor in Spanish). He worked in the lab of Dr. Tony Pedley investigating protein-protein interactions and the role of molecular chaperones in regulating cell metabolism. He also developed cell-based assays to understand the mechanism of action of oncogenic kinase degraders. Matt joined SGC-UNC in 2024 through the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program, where he will be working on targets implicated in neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS.
Former SGC-UNC Employees - Where are they now?
Yi Liang took a position as an Associate Director with Wuxi Apptech in Wuhan City, China.
Christopher Asquith took a position as a Postdoc Research Associate in Gary Johnson's Pharmacology lab in the UNC School of Medicine.
Nirav Kapadia took a position as Senior Chemist I with Adesis, Inc in New Castle, Delaware.
Carla Alamillo Ferrer took a position as Research Scientist with Eurofins Villapharma in Fuente Álamo de Murchia, Spain.
William Zuercher, Associate Professor, moved to Switzerland with his family.
Sean O’Byrne took a position as a medicinal chemist with the drug discovery unit in the University of Dundee, Scotland.
Joseph Pilotte, Cell Biologist, accepted a position with a local biotechnical start-up.
Louisa Temme took a position as Project leader in the Department of Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Münster, Germany.
Benjamin Eduful took a position as a scientist at Hager Biosciences in Pennsylvania.
Carrow Wells took a position with GlaxoSmithKline in Pennsylvania.
Alfredo Picado took a position as a scientist at Loxo Oncology in Boulder, Colorado
Joel Annor-Gyamfi took a position as an R&D Chemist with Sterling Pharma Solutions in Cary, NC.
Vamshi Sammeta took a position as a staff scientist at the Fredrick National Laboratory in Maryland.
Hebaallah Agha relocated to the Northwest United States with her family.
Xuan Yang took a position as a scientist at Arrakis Therapeutics in Waltham, MA.
Kareem Galal took a position as a Research Scientist at Sterling Pharma Solutions in Cary, NC.
Tammy Havener retired.
Han Wee Ong obtained his PhD and is working at a Postdoctoral Research Associate at St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, TN.