Scientists / Our Scientists

Weiru Wang

Senior Principal Scientist (Technology), Structural Biology

Postdoc Mentor

Years at Genentech

Publications at Genentech

I started my lab at Genentech in June 2007. Being a scientist at Genentech is both exciting and challenging. I enjoy having the privilege of collaborating with many extremely talented colleagues. Together, we harness opportunities to discover basic science and to translate them into innovative medicine that we hope can make a difference in patients’ lives. My lab has interests in understanding the molecular basis of protein-drug interactions using biophysical methods, primarily macromolecular crystallography. At Genentech, our drug discovery efforts aim at tackling protein targets with “atomic precision”. My lab’s research provides structural insights into disease-related biological molecules, and enables structure-based design of small-molecule and antibody drugs.

Prior to Genentech, I was a senior scientist in Structural Biology at Plexxikon, a biotech start-up in Berkeley, CA, where I worked on drug discovery programs for cancer and metabolic disorder. Prior to Plexxikon, I was a staff scientist in the Physical Biosciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where I worked on structural genomics projects.

Featured Publication

Small-molecule ligands bind to a distinct pocket in RAS and inhibit nucleotide exchange activity.

(2012) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 109(14):5299-304

Maurer T, Garrenton LS, Oh A, Pitts K, Anderson DJ, Skelton NJ, Fauber BP, Pan B, Malek S, Stokoe D, Ludlam MJ, Bowman KK, Wu J, Giannetti AM, Starovasnik MA, Mellman I, Jackson PK, Rudolph J, Wang W, Fang G.

View Abstract

My lab’s research activities are focused on the structure determination of drug targets, mostly in the field of oncology and neurodegeneration.

Co-crystallography is vital to structure-based drug design. We collaborate with Medicinal Chemistry and Antibody Engineering on multiple drug discovery projects.

On the basic research side, we have interests in gaining structural insights into biological molecules and molecular assemblies with therapeutic importance. We expect that such knowledge can provide the basis for developing future drug discovery strategy.

We also play a critical role in technology development. An important aspect of my lab’s activity is to improve and implement the high-throughput crystallography platform within the Structural Biology Department.

Discovery of Spiro-azaindoline Inhibitors of Hematopoietic Progenitor Kinase 1 (HPK1)

ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters, ISSN: 19485875

Bryan K. Chan; Eileen Seward; Michael Lainchbury; Thomas F. Brewer; Le An; Toby Blench; Matthew W. Cartwright; Grace Chan; Edna F. Choo; Jason H. Drummond; Richard Elliott; Emanuela Gancia; Lewis Gazzard; Baihua Hu; Graham Jones; Xifeng Luo; Andrew Madin; Sushant Malhotra; John Moffat; Jodie Pang; Laurent Salphati; Chris J. Sneeringer; Craig E. Stivala; Binqing Wei; Weiru Wang; Ping Wu; Timothy P. Heffron

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Weiru Wang

Senior Principal Scientist (Technology), Structural Biology

Featured Publication

Small-molecule ligands bind to a distinct pocket in RAS and inhibit nucleotide exchange activity.