Robert's Short Biography
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 22 points and over 1700 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 48 papers only with his current or former master or doctoral students as co-authors. A list of 1748 citations of Robert's publications without self-citations till 22.03.2026 can be seen here.
Robert's publications have an Impact Factor (IF) of 264 points.
Penchovsky's current citations according to ResearchGate
are 1426 with H-index of 20 points indexing 78 publications.
According to Scopus
Robert Penchovsky have 1202 citations by 847 documents with H-index of 18 points indexing 51 publications.
Robert created the first algorithms for computer design of allosteric ribozymes, which greatly facilitated the creation and application of these RNAs as biosensors in vitro and in vivo. Prof. Penchovsky also created the first algorithm based on thermodynamic criteria for encoding and storing binary information in synthetic DNA. In addition, Dr. Penchovsky created new biochemical procedures for automatic DNA selection and sequencing in microreactors. Prof. Penchovsky first applied antisense oligonucleotides that bind to bacterial riboswitches to develop new antibacterial agents.
In Penchovsky's laboratory, 16 master's students and 7 doctoral students have successfully defended their theses under his solid supervision.
Prof. Penchovsky was awarded an outstanding scientist award in RNA synthetic biology in November 2025!. 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 has been hold 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 his projects as his Ph.D. students have won 4 awards (1, 2, 3, 4) from 3 national science contests, 1 start-up award, 2 teacher awards (1 and 2) and one award for the best poster since 2021, aggregated 8 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, ASOs, rational drug design and new antibiotics.
For full CV and CV-like information visit:
Robert's full CV till 02.02.2026 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:111 publications 