David H. Drewry is a Professor in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, affiliated with the Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry. He earned a B.S. in Chemistry cum laude from Yale University in 1985 and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1990 under Paul A. Bartlett, focusing on the design, synthesis, and mechanistic studies of zinc protease inhibitors. Drewry spent over 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry, advancing through roles at Glaxo, GlaxoWellcome, and GlaxoSmithKline, including Director of Chemical Biology (2010–2015), Director of Exploratory Chemistry (2008–2009), Director of the Metabolic Lead Discovery Team (2007–2008), and Director of the Kinase Chemistry Team (2005–2007). From 2015 to 2016, he served as Head of Chemistry at Meryx Inc., focusing on small-molecule inhibitors of Mer kinase. Since 2016, he has been at UNC as Associate Professor, promoted to Professor, serving as Principal Scientist at the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC-UNC), member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, UNC Graduate Faculty, and BBSP-Affiliated Faculty.

Drewry's research centers on the medicinal chemistry of protein kinases, including the discovery of chemical probes for understudied kinases and development of kinase chemogenomic sets such as the Kinase Chemogenomic Set (KCGS). His lab, trained in synthetic organic chemistry, designs and optimizes small molecules to address biological questions, particularly in rare cancers like chordoma, fibrolamellar cancer, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, and desmoplastic small round cell tumor, involving target discovery, validation, and lead optimization. Key publications include "Structural insights into human brachyury DNA recognition and discovery of progressible binders for cancer therapy" (Nature Communications, 2025), "How many kinases are druggable? A review of our current understanding" (Biochemical Journal, 2023), "SGC-CAMKK2-1: A Chemical Probe for CAMKK2" (Cells, 2023), and "The Kinase Chemogenomic Set (KCGS): an open science resource for kinase vulnerability identification" (International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 2021). Awards include the GlaxoSmithKline Silver Award (2010), Chordoma Foundation Uncommon Collaboration Award (2016), UNC Junior Faculty Development Award (2017), and UNC Lineberger Innovation Award (2022). As a principal architect of SGC-UNC's research strategy, Drewry advances open collaborative networks for target discovery and chemical biology in oncology.

Professional Email: david.drewry@unc.edu