Dean Dragoli

Dean Dragoli is the Executive Director of Medicinal Chemistry and brings over 20 years of small molecule drug discovery to his role. Prior to joining Alumis, Dean helped lead multiple GI and renal discovery programs to develop candidate nomination at Ardelyx, utilizing tissue-targeting strategies including gut lumen restriction and pro- and soft-drug approaches. Through his nearly ten years at Chemocentryx, Dean worked on the discovery of inhibitors for chemotactic receptors including CCR1, CCR9, and C5a, the latter of which eventually led to the approval of TavneosTM. Out of graduate school, he developed library chemistries at Discovery Partners International (previously ChemRX Advanced Technologies) that would deliver from dozens to thousands of discrete lead-like small molecules and early lead op analogs for collaborators. Dean earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley with Jonathan Ellman in 2001, focused on developing combinatorial methodologies and asymmetric amine synthesis with tert-butanesulfinamide.