David Galas

Dr. David Galas is a Senior Investigator at Pacific Northwest Research Institute, formerly holding the positions of Professor and Senior Vice President at the Institute for Systems Biology. Prior to that, he was Chief Science Officer for Life Sciences of the Battelle Memorial Institute. He was previously Chancellor, Chief Scientific Officer and Norris Professor of Applied Life Science at the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences (KGI), in Claremont, Calif., a research and educational institution in the applied life sciences, which he co-founded. Earlier, Dr. Galas served as President and Chief Scientific Officer of Seattle-based Chiroscience R&D, Inc., a genomics and drug discovery company formed through the acquisition of Darwin Molecular Corporation, which Dr. Galas co-founded in 1993 and served as CEO and Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Galas has also served as Director for Health and Environmental Research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, where he headed the DOE’s Human Genome Project from 1990 to 1993, while on leave from the University of Southern California, where he was Professor of Molecular Biology and chairman.

Dr. Galas’ PhD training was in physics, from the University of California. He has also held research positions at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and the University of California’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. His broad research interests include areas of molecular biology and human genetics, the development and application of new technologies in the life sciences, and the understanding of complex biological networks. He is the recipient of several awards including the Smithsonian Institution–Computer World Pioneer award in 1999. He has served on many federal, university and corporate boards, including several biotechnology companies he has co-founded, and on various advisory and National Research Council committees, including the Board on Life Science and the National Cancer Policy Board. He chairs the Board of Directors of the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. He is a lifetime National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences.