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Methodical man: Ken Mohler

	TOM REESE / THE SEATTLE TIMES
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Ken Mohler grew up a doctor's son in the Kansas cow town of Abilene. He liked the idea of helping patients — except when doctors felt helpless, out of treatment options. He was more attracted to the can-do mentality of his grandfather, an entrepreneur, and finding ways to apply it to medicine.

It took most of his life to do it, starting with years of study in immunology and then a low-level job in a pharmaceutical company, but he found a way. Mohler is one of the few scientists of his generation who has created a breakthrough drug that has enabled bedridden patients to return to their jobs, or play golf, without pain.

Mohler, 48, did it at Immunex, one of Seattle's pioneering biotechnology companies, and now runs research and development at a startup, Trubion Pharmaceuticals in Seattle.

Ken Mohler Age: 48 Occupation: Senior vice president, research and development, Trubion Pharmaceuticals Education: University of Texas Southwestern, Ph.D. in immunology Distinguishing characteristic: An ability to envision thousands of experimental dead-ends and design tests around them. Accomplishment: Designed early experiments that established Enbrel as the first drug that can neutralize the cause of rheumatoid arthritis.

He speaks in a soft, just-the-facts monotone, no adjectives. He is unpretentious — he wears jeans and open-collar shirts to work, and cracks that he's "a plodder." He lives in Kitsap County and uses the quiet time on the ferry to think science or sometimes unwind with beach reading.

"With Ken, what you see is what you get," said Mike Widmer, a former boss. "I could look at his data and know it was solid. No hidden agendas, no cutting corners. I could rely on it."

Mohler and his team's work was not the visionary stuff of Nobel Prizes. They built on work of others who theorized that if a molecule could soak up one type of excess cells, it might stop a chain reaction that causes the kind of crippling inflammation found in rheumatoid arthritis.

But colleagues say Mohler has an equally rare and precious ability of showing, step by step, how an idea works. He spent the 1990s testing the theories with lab experiments and imagining thousands of possible dead-ends. Would stopping one type of cell, out of thousands, shut down inflammation? Could the molecule bind tightly enough to cells? Was he aiming at the wrong molecular bull's-eye?

Mohler says it took him years to understand that the more questions asked in an experiment, the muddier the answers got. Better to keep it simple and to methodically pile up evidence on his way toward a goal.

In the end, the answers were promising enough for Immunex to invest millions in human testing of Enbrel, the genetically engineered molecule that went on to relieve pain and suffering of more than 100,000 people with rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases.

It also made a fortune for Immunex, which later was acquired by Amgen. Enbrel has become one of the best-selling pharmaceuticals ever, with up to $1.8 billion in sales this year, or about $5 million a day.

— Luke Timmerman

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company