Dr. Campbell McInnes is a distinguished professor and leader in pharmaceutical sciences at the University of South Carolina College of Pharmacy, where he holds a prominent position in the Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences department. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Edinburgh in 1991 following undergraduate studies at the University of Guelph, and completed postdoctoral training in Biochemistry at the University of Alberta. Prior to his academic career, Dr. McInnes served as head of the structure-guided medicinal chemistry group at Cyclacel Inc. in the United Kingdom, a company founded by Prof. Sir David Lane, co-discoverer of the p53 protein. His transition from industry to academia has established him as a bridge between pharmaceutical development and academic research, bringing valuable translational expertise to his current roles as Director of the Drug Design and Synthesis Core Facility and principal investigator of an active research laboratory.
Dr. McInnes has made significant contributions to cancer therapeutics through his innovative work on protein kinase inhibitors that target signaling and cell cycle proteins involved in tumor proliferation. Rather than pursuing conventional ATP-binding site inhibition, his laboratory pioneered the REPLACE strategy to effectively target protein-protein interactions involved in allosteric regulation of kinase activity, a novel approach that has yielded highly selective inhibitors with promising therapeutic potential. His seminal 2005 publication on polo-like kinase inhibitors in Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry has garnered substantial scholarly attention and established foundational principles in the field. The compounds developed through his REPLACE methodology are currently undergoing advanced medicinal chemistry optimization, cellular phenotypic characterization, and preclinical tumor model testing, demonstrating tangible progression toward clinical application.
Beyond his laboratory discoveries, Dr. McInnes directs the Drug Design and Synthesis Core Facility, providing state-of-the-art computational and synthetic chemistry resources that support drug discovery projects across multiple research teams at the university. His entrepreneurial spirit is evident in the founding of PPI Pharmaceuticals, LLC, a spin-off company dedicated to translating academic discoveries into viable therapeutic candidates. Dr. McInnes continues to shape the field through his dual focus on academic research and commercial application, mentoring the next generation of medicinal chemists while advancing his laboratory's work on developing next-generation kinase inhibitors. His current research integrates synthetic organic chemistry, structural biology, and computational approaches to overcome longstanding challenges in targeting protein-protein interactions, positioning his work at the forefront of innovative cancer drug discovery.
