Robert Penchovsky is a full professor of molecular genetics, synthetic biology, and bioinformatics and a head of the Laboratory of Synthetic Biology and Bioinformatics at the Faculty of Biology of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” , Bulgaria, where he obtained his Master’s degree in biochemistry and molecular genetics, and his аssociate’s degree in applied computer sciences. Robert attended 30th high school in Sofia with extensive learning of German language .
He earned his Doctoral degree in genetics from Cologne University , Germany while researching in the fields of microfluidics and DNA computing for the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft at Schloss Birlinghoven in Sankt Augustin (near Bonn), Germany.
Robert did his postdoctoral study in the fields of computational biology and RNA synthetic biology at Yale University , New Haven, CT, USA.
In addition to that Robert has worked for short periods of time as a software engineer, a biotech consultant, and a researcher of molecular biology at the Institute of Molecular Biology in Sofia, Bulgaria and at the former Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Jena, Germany (now Leibniz Institute on Aging in Jane , Germany). Robert is a former reserve lieutenant of the Bulgarian Army .
As a research and teaching faculty at Sofia University since 2010, Robert pioneered the teaching and research in synthetic biology and bioinformatics in Bulgaria. Robert's publications have H-index of 18 points and over 1420 citations according to ScholarGoogle. He took part in 20 research projects. Robert is a leading author (the first or the last author) of 97% of his publications and the corresponding author(*) of 92% of them! 87% of all publications have not more than 3 co-authors and 11.4% of them have 4 or 5 co-authors. Only one publication has more than 5 co-authors (1.6%), namely 7. Since his assistant professorship position in 2010, Robert has published 14 papers of various types as a solid author and 42 papers only with my current or former master or doctoral students as co-authors. A list of 1231 citations of Robert's publications without self-citations till the end of 22.03.2024 can be seen here. Robert's publications have an Impact Factor (IF) of 254 points. According to Scopus Robert Penchovsky have 1004 citations by 701 documents with H-index of 17 points indexing 46 publications (see with Firefox, not Chrome). Penchovsky's current citations according to ResearchGate are 1183 with H-index of 18 points indexing 70 publications.
In Penchovsky's laboratory, 16 master's students and 6 doctoral students have successfully defended their theses under his solid supervision.
Robert has received an outstanding scientist award from the 7th Edition of International Research Awards on SENSING TECHNOLOGY on August 5th, 2023! He has been also acknowledged by an award from the Bulgarian national contest for scientific excellence for researchers of all areas over 35 years old organized by the Union of the Scientists in Bulgaria. His research has been awarded for scientific excellence achieved in the fields of synthetic biology, bioinformatics and molecular evolution. The ceremony whas been helt in the aula of Sofia University on November 2nd, 2015. His recent research publication is an editors' choice of the American Chemical Society and is among the most popular in the ACS Synthetic Biology! Four young scientists working under his supervision on my projects have won 4 awards (1, 2, 3, 4) from 3 national science contests, 1 start-up award, and 2 teacher awards (1 and 2) since 2021, aggregated 7 awards!
Since 2010, the research in Robert Penchovsky's laboratory was supported by 18 grants, for 13 of which Dr. Penchovsky has been a project leader. Prof. Robert Penchovsky has won grants for over 470 000 EUR as a project leader.
Robert is fluent in English and uses German and Russian.
Robert's research keywords: ribozymes, riboswitches, bioinformatics, biosensors, microfluidics, DNA/RNA computing, RNA synthetic biology, and rational drug design.
For full CV and CV-like information visit: Robert's full CV in a pdf file https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Penchovsky/-ResearchGate http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9502-3421-ORCID https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-penchovsky-348ab7122/-LinkedIn https://www.facebook.com/robert.penchovsky/-Facebook https://ras.nacid.bg/dissertation-preview/32000-NACID:107 publications