Pablo D.T. Valenzuela Ph.D. Principal Investigator of MIFAB. Founder and Director, Fundación Ciencia para la Vida
(www.cienciavida.cl) ; Founder and Senior Vice-president Emeritus, Chiron Corp (www.chiron.cl), USA. 2002 Chilean National Award in Applied Sciences and Technology.

Pablo Valenzuela is known as one of the pioneers of industrial biotechnology. In 1981 he co-founded the biotechnology company Chiron with Drs. Bill Rutter and Edward Penhoet. From this initial date until 1994, he was the director for all Chiron research, assuming later the responsibility for all research and process development for Chiron biological products, in particular those for the immunodiagnostic business. Valenzuela is best known for his early studies on the molecular genetics of the HBV and later as the developer of the technology for the recombinant hepatitis B vaccine, the world first and largest-selling recombinant vaccine. Also, under his direction, Chiron scientists cloned and sequenced the AIDS virus genome, cloned and sequenced the hepatitis delta genome, discovered the hepatitis C virus, and developed a yeast production system for several key proteins including recombinant human insulin. A native of Chile, Valenzuela earned a degree in Biochemistry from the University of Chile, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northwestern University, and did post-doctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). In 1986 he founded and is currently president of Bios Chile, a Chilean Biotechnology company. He founded and works at the Fundación Ciencia Para La Vida, where he actively promotes science and technology in the Chilean productive sector. Upon his return to Chile, Valenzuela has initiated a research program on infectious diseases affecting the Chilean salmoniculture industry such as Piscirickettsia salmonis, infectious pancreatic necrosis (IPN) virus and salmon anemia (ISA) virus. Also he started studies on virus affecting grapevines, genomic studies on Hantavirus and the red tide causing dinoflagellates Alexandrium catenella. Dr. Valenzuela has more than hundred original articles with 4,372 citations in the last 20 years and a total of 44 patents.

He is Professor at the Universidad Católica de Chile(www.puc.cl)and Professor and Director of the Ph.D. Program in Biotechnology( www.unab.cl)at the Universidad Andrés Bello(www.unab.cl)

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

VALENZUELA, P., Hagger, G., Weinberg, F. & Rutter, W.J. (1976). The molecular structure of yeast RNA polymerase III. Demonstration of the tripartite transcriptive system in lower eukaryotes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 73, 1024.

VALENZUELA, P., Venegas, A., Weinberg, F., Bishop, R. & Rutter, W.J. (1978). Structure of yeast phenylalanine tRNA genes. An intervening DNA segment within the region coding for the tRNA. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 75, 190.

O’Farrell, P.Z., Cordell, B., VALENZUELA, P., Rutter, W.J. & Goodman, H.M. (1978). Structure and processing yeast precursor tRNAs containing intervening sequences, Nature 274, 438-445.

VALENZUELA, P., Gray, P., Quiroga, M., Zaldivar, J., Goodman, H.M. & Rutter, W.J. (1979). Nucleotide sequence of the gene coding for the major protein of hepatitis B surface antigen. Nature 280, 215.

VALENZUELA, P., Medina, A., Rutter, W.J., Ammerer, G. & Hall, B.D. (1982). Synthesis and assembly of hepatitis B virus surface antigen particles yeast. Nature 298, 347.

Brake, A.J., Merryweather, J.P., Coit, D.G., Heberlein, U.A., Masiarz, F.R., Mullenbach, G.T., Urdea, M.S., VALENZUELA, P. & Barr, P.J. (1984). Alpha-factor directed synthesis and secretion of mature foreign proteins in S. cerevisiae. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 81, 4642-4646.

Wilhelm, V., Villegas, J., Miquel, A., Engel, E., Bernales, S., VALENZUELA, P.D.T. and BURZIO, L.O. (2003). The complete sequence of the mitochondrial genome of the Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha. Gene, In press.

Tischler, N., Fernández, J., Müller, I., Martínez, R., Galeno, H., Villagra, E., Mora, J., Ramírez, E., ROSEMBLATT, M. and VALENZUELA, P.D.T. (2003). Complete sequence of the genome of the human isolate of Andes virus CH7913: Comparative sequence and protein structure analysis. Biol. Res. In press.

Wilhelm, V., Engel, E., Miquel, A., Jamett, A., Aguayo, J., Müller, I., Hernández, C., Soza, C., Bernales, S., Martínez, R., ROSEMBLATT, M., BURZIO, L.O. and VALENZUELA, P.D.T. (2003). Piscirickettsia salmonis: Un enfoque genómico para un problema de la salmonicultura. Biotecnología Marina, Paniagua, J. Editor, Mexico. In press.