Robert Penchovsky | Synthetic Biology & Bioinformatics Professor

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 associate’s degree in applied computer sciences. Robert attended 30^th 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 Jena , 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 23 points and 1,871 citations according to ScholarGoogle . He took part in 20 research projects. Robert is a leading author (the first or the last author) of 97.5% of his publications and the corresponding author(*) of 95% of them! 81.7% of all publications have no more than 3 co-authors and 17.1% of them have 4 or 5 co-authors. Only one publication has more than 5 co-authors (1.2%), namely 7. Since his assistant professorship position in 2010, Robert has published 14 papers of various types as a sole author and 55 papers only with his current or former master or doctoral students as co-authors. Robert's publications have an Impact Factor (IF) of 275 points. Penchovsky's current citations according to ResearchGate are 1,572 with h-index of 22 points indexing 88 publications. According to Scopus, Robert Penchovsky has 1,335 citations by 916 documents with h-index of 20 points indexing 57 publications. The Category Normalized Citation Impact (CNCI) of Robert Penchovsky's publications on genetics and heredity is 1.41 for all-time according to WoS.

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 7^th Edition of International Research Awards on SENSING TECHNOLOGY on August 5^th, 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 2^nd, 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, aggregating 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 01.10.2026 in a pdf file
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Robert_Penchovsky/-ResearchGate
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9502-3421-ORCID indexed 84 publications
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-penchovsky-348ab7122/-LinkedIn
https://www.facebook.com/robert.penchovsky/-Facebook
https://ras.nacid.bg/dissertation-preview/32000-NACID:120 publications

Download the full CV (PDF)

Education and training

Postdoctoral study	RNA synthetic and computational biology, Yale University, New Haven, USA
Doctoral degree (Dr. rer. nat.)	Genetics, microfluidics and DNA computing, Cologne University, while working for the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft at Schloss Birlinghoven, Sankt Augustin, Germany. Thesis
Reserve military officer	Reserve lieutenant of the Bulgarian Army, from the former National School for Reserve Military Officers “Hristo Botev”
Associate’s degree	Applied computer sciences and bioinformatics, Sofia University
Master’s degree	Biochemistry, microbiology and genetics, Sofia University
High school	30th School, Sofia, with extended German language study