A new addition to the Center faculty – Dr. Gennady Verkhivker

August 1, 2006

The Center for Bioinformatics is announcing the recruitment of Dr. Gennady Verkhivker, a world leading scientist in modeling of biomolecular interactions, structure-based drug design, bioinformatics and computational pharmacogenomics. Dr. Verkhivker earned his PhD in theoretical physical chemistry from the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Russian National Academy of Sciences in 1986. He subsequently received there postdoctoral training and rose to the rank of a Group Leader in Theoretical Chemistry. Dr. Verkhivker continued pursuing his scientific interests in the laboratory of Prof. Ron Elber at the Department of Chemistry, University of Illinois at Chicago in 1990-1992. Upon starting his industrial career at Agouron Pharmaceuticals in 1993, Dr. Verkhivker established a distinguished professional record in pharmaceutical industry. He played a leading role in establishing computer-aided drug design technology and building the largest computational group in pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Verkhivker has held various research and management positions of increasing responsibility at Agouron Pharmaceuticals, Warner-Lambert, Pfizer Global Research and Development and served most recently as an Associate Research Fellow and Group Leader in the Department of Computational Chemistry at Pfizer Global R&D, La Jolla Laboratories. His distinguished research accomplishments and pharmaceutical industry experience have been highly regarded in the academic world. Dr. Gennady Verkhivker was appointed as an Adjunct Full Professor of Pharmacology at the Department of Pharmacology, University of California, San Diego and the UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dr. Verkhivker is a highly distinguished scientist who is widely recognized for his research and important contributions in areas of computational chemistry, bioinformatics and computational biology with numerous high-profile publications in top peer-reviewed journals and presentations at many prestigious international conferences. Dr. Verkhivker is extremely active in the national and international scientific community, organizing many international symposia and workshops. He has been a reviewer of numerous scientific papers in leading journals and a member of review panels in major granting agencies.

Dr. Verkhivker joins the Center for Bioinformatics in October, as Full Professor with Tenure, with a joint appointment in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry.