Robert Spitale

Dr. Spitale received his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry at the University of Rochester in 2009 as an Elon Huntington Hooker Fellow. He then transitioned to postdoctoral studies at Stanford University and was awarded the A.P. Giannini Fellowship to support his research. Dr. Spitale is a Professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences department at UC Irvine, where he joined as an Assistant Professor in 2014. In this time his research has focused on developing novel chemical and bioinformatic approaches toward understanding the role of RNA structure and function in normal biology as well as disease. He has received numerous awards for his research contributions, including: the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Pew Biomedical Research Fellowship, an American Cancer Society IRG Award, a W.M. Keck Medical Research Grant Award, the Ono Pharmaceuticals Breakthrough Science Award, and was recently named the Rising Star by the International Chemical Biology Society.