After completing his PhD on the synthesis of Enkephalin derivatives in 1980, Mike worked as a medicinal chemist at Wyeth and GD Searle, also developing an interest in computational chemistry at the latter. Mike joined Glaxo in 1986 and was responsible for helping build and then lead the computational chemistry, biophysics, x-ray and chemical biology departments. He helped develop fragments theory and practice for lead identification1. His current role is in developing new technologies for early drug discovery approaches, including attrition reduction2, chemical biology for target tractability assessment4, and understanding drug distribution at cellular and subcellular resolution3. Mike is a GSK Senior Fellow and an Adjunct Professor in the chemistry department at Imperial College London.
1. Hann, Michael M.; Leach, Andrew R.; Harper, Gavin. Molecular Complexity and Its Impact on the Probability of Finding Leads for Drug Discovery. Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences (2001), 41(3), 856-864.
2. Hann, Michael M. Molecular obesity, potency and other addictions in drug discovery MedChemComm (2011), 2(5), 349-355.
3. Kristin K. Brown, Michael M. Hann, Ami S. Lakdawala, Rita Santos, Pamela J. Thomas and Kieran Todd. Approaches to target tractability assessment – a practical perspective. Med. Chem. Commun., 2018,9, 606-613.
4. André Mateus, Laurie J. Gordon, Gareth J. Wayne, Helena Almqvist, Hanna Axelsson, Brinton Seashore-Ludlow, Andrea Treyer, Pär Matsson, Thomas Lundbäck, Andy West, Michael M. Hann, and Per Artursson. Prediction of intracellular exposure bridges the gap between target- and cell-based drug discovery PNAS July 25, 2017 114 (30) E6231-E6239.