Dr. Wynn received a B.S. degree in both Biology and Chemistry from McMurry University followed by advanced degrees in Chemistry and Biochemistry from Texas Tech University. His postdoctoral work in protein chemistry was in Dr. Richard Malkin’s lab at UC Berkeley. In 1989, Dr. Wynn joined the laboratory of Drs. David Chuang and Rody Cox, at UT Southwestern Medical center. He joined the Metabolic Phenotyping Core lab in November 2019.

Most of his research career has been spent working on protein purification, isolation and characterization of macromolecular complexes and protein crystallization. In 2010, he began to explore small molecule drug discovery in order to produce kinase inhibitors for the mitochondrial BCKDC kinase (BDK) and the pyruvate dehydrogenase kinases. He has used structure-based design to develop a new generation of small-molecule inhibitors specific to BDK and pan-PDK’s. These kinase inhibitors have shown good promise in promoting oxidation of glucose and of branched-chain amino acids, while reducing lipogenesis in animal models for obesity and type 2 diabetes.