James A. Wells, PhD

Dr. Wells is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCSF. Dr. Wells began his independent research career as a co-founding member of the Protein Engineering Department at Genentech. At Genentech, Wells and his group improved the function of enzymes (such as subtilisin), growth factors (human growth hormone), and antibodies by site-directed mutagenesis and protein phage display. Several biologic products derived directly from these efforts ranging from Pegvisomat (Somavert) an engineered growth hormone antagonist for treatment of acromegaly, humanization of Bevacizumab (Avastin) a VEGF antagonist for treating cancers, and engineered proteases developed for popular laundry detergents by Genencor International. His group developed fundamental technologies and protein design principles commonly used for engineering enzymes, hormones, antibodies, and protein-protein interfaces. In 1998, Wells co-founded Sunesis Pharmaceuticals where he was CSO and President.  Several of the compounds discovered at Sunesis are now in clinical development. They also discovered the anti-inflammatory drug Lifitegrast, which was subsequently developed by SarCODE and is now sold by Shire for dry eye syndrome. In 2005, Wells joined the faculty at UCSF where he served as Chair of Pharmaceutical Chemistry for 8 years. In 2012, Wells founded the Antibiome Center as part of the Recombinant Antibody Network, devoted to generating human recombinant antibodies at a proteome-wide scale using high throughput platforms for antibody phage display. The Wells Lab now investigates how cell surface proteomes change in health and disease by applying mass spectrometry and protein and antibody engineering, to understand and disrupt human-disease-associated signaling processes. Dr. Wells has been the recipient of numerous awards for his fundamental contributions to protein engineering and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the National Academy of Inventors.