September 7, 2007
David Lawrence, PhD, a leading expert in the field of chemical biology, has joined the faculty of the UNC School of Pharmacy.
Before joining the School’s Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products, Lawrence spent eleven years as a professor of biochemistry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York. Before that, he was at the State University of New York at Buffalo for ten years. He received his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles.
The School of Pharmacy collaborated with the Department of Chemistry, the School of Medicine, and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center in recruiting Lawrence, who says the opportunity to work with researchers from all these areas was one of the main factors that convinced him to make the move.
“The medicinal chemistry program is really uniquely positioned to serve as a bridge between the chemistry department and the medical school on campus,” he says. “It serves as a bridge between the more chemical world and the more biological world.
“There are universities out there that have great chemistry departments. There are some that have great medical schools. There are even a handful that have great medical schools and great chemistry departments. But there are very few that not only have those two departments that are really strong, but also an existing school of pharmacy, and in particular an existing medicinal chemistry program, that can serve as that bridge. In that sense, Carolina is quite unique. That’s one thing I found really appealing.”
Lawrence is a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor in the School of Pharmacy. He also holds a salaried joint appointment in the Department of Chemistry, as well as nonsalaried joint appointments in the Department of Pharmacology and the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. It is the first time that the chemistry department has participated in a joint-salaried faculty recruitment.
“The School is a natural home for a great scientist and teacher like David Lawrence, because pharmacy is the place where chemistry and biology meet,” says Robert Blouin, dean of the School of Pharmacy. “We are very pleased to have him joining us in Chapel Hill.”
Lawrence’s work, which is currently funded by three grants from the National Institutes of Health, focuses on understanding the biochemical processes of the cell. Traditionally, this is done by extracting enzymes from cells and observing them in the artificial environment of a cuvette. Lawrence, however, is studying these processes in their natural environment inside the cell.
His research projects include the development of
- inhibitors that block signaling pathways, which could be useful in treating an assortment of different diseases, such as cancer, diabetes, and rare genetic disorders;
- enzyme sensors that collect data on enzymatic activity in living cells;
- light-activated inhibitors, sensors, and enzymes that give researchers greater control in altering the chemistry of cells whenever and wherever they want.
“The recruitment of Dr. Lawrence will have a significant impact on the present and future of the chemical biology research at UNC,” says Alex Tropsha, PhD, the chair of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry and Natural Products. “It is critical to position UNC as one of the nation’s leading universities in this area as part of the overall focus on translational biomedical research.”
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