Dr Mike Hann obtained his PhD in Organic chemistry at the City University in London in 1980 with Professor Peter Sammes. He then worked in the UK as a medicinal chemist at Roussel, Wyeth and GD Searle. During his time at GD Searle he had the opportunity to get involved with the emerging use of computational chemistry and molecular modelling in drug discovery.
He joined GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) at Greenford in 1986 as a computational chemist and after several mergers and a lot of fun science he became head of computational chemistry at GSK in the UK and then director of Biomolecular Sciences with responsibilities for x-ray crystallography, biophysics and protein mass spectrometry studies.
His current role continues to find him at the interface of chemistry and biology, where he says “all the interesting stuff happens!“, and involves promoting scientific exchange, excellence and innovation to improve drug discovery methodologies within GSK and with our external collaborators. He has published extensively on a wide range of subjects including the following highly cited publications. He is also a visiting adjunct professor in the department of chemistry at Imperial College London.
Past publications:
- Hann, Michael M.; Keseru, Gyoergy M. Finding the sweet spot: the role of nature and nurture in medicinal chemistry. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery (2012), 11(5), 355-365.
- Hann, Michael M. Molecular obesity, potency and other addictions in drug discovery. MedChemComm (2011), 2(5), 349-355.
- 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.
