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Andrew Pohorille received Ph.D. in biophysics from the Department of Physics, University of Warsaw in 1979. He obtained his postdoctoral training with Prof. Bernard Pullman at the Institute de Biologie Chimico-Physique in Paris. Between 1982 and 1992 he was on the research faculty at the Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley. Since 1992 he has been professor of Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California San Francisco. In 1996 he joined the staff of the Exobiology Branch at NASA-Ames. Currently he heads the NASA Center for Computational Astrobiology and Fundamental Biology. In 2000 he received the NASA Group Award as a member of the Astrobiology Team and in 2002 he was awarded the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal.
His main interests have been centered on simulating the structure and function of biomolecular and cellular systems, and in particular membranes and membrane proteins. He also has a long-standing interest in the nature of hydrophobic effects and aqueous solution interfaces. His other research activities are devoted to computational modeling of genetic and regulatory networks, the mechanism of anesthetic action, the origin of life, the structure of comets and mathematical models of making risky decision. He also works on the development of new computational methods and algorithms particularly suitable for parallel and distributed computing. He co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed publications in these and related areas. |
