David Gray

David is currently head of Biology at the Drug Discovery Unit of the College of Life Sciences at Dundee. His role is to develop strategies for people, facilities, equipment and IT to allow the effective support of hit discovery, hits to leads and lead optimisation programs; to aid in the integration of the DDU and the current science at Dundee; to control budgets and seek additional funding; to support out-licensing discussions with potential partners and to build contacts and collaborations with other groups. Before joining the University in 2010, David was director of Screening & Compound profiling at GSK where he led a unit of 29 scientists charged with delivering high-throughput screens and iterative compound profiling to support approximately 40 drug discovery programs across the respiratory, inflammation and neuroscience therapeutic areas. He also had a global matrix role in prioritising and initiating hit identification programs for the respiratory disease portfolio. He held a number of program leadership roles within GlaxoWellcome and Wellcome for preclinical drug discovery programs. Over the course of 15 years working in the pharmaceutical industry, David has been recognised as an innovative scientist with a vocation for drug discovery. He has contributed to changes in research algorithms for GPCRs, kinases, nuclear hormone receptors and integrins, applying new technology and analytical insights to progress successful programs. He has wide ranging expertise across the drug discovery process, having devised successful target and hit validation strategies, guided lead identification and optimisation, and significantly contributed to the selection of 10 clinical candidates across multiple disease areas and target families.