Robert S. Pearlman Receives the 2006 SBS Accomplishment Award

Dr. Robert S. Pearlman has been awarded this year’s SBS Accomplishment Award for development of the DiverseSolutions software, widely used in pharmaceutical and agrochemical industry to guide and assess general compound collections, project-oriented screening sets, and both diverse and focused library design. 

The award presentation will take place during the 12th Annual SBS Conference & Exhibition in Seattle, Washington, September 17-21, 2006.

Currently, Dr. Pearlman is a member of the faculty of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin. 

He holds the Coulter R. Sublett Regents Chair and is the Director of the Laboratory for the Development of Computer-Assisted Drug Discovery Software. He also remains actively involved in teaching at the University.

Although best known for developing Concord, the industry-standard tool for conversion of 2D molecular connection tables to 3D molecular structures, Dr. Pearlman’s research group has been involved in developing theory, algorithms, and software for almost all aspects of computer-assisted molecular discovery. 

As the result of industrial relationships directly with his laboratory and a software distribution agreement with Tripos, programs developed by his group now play important roles in the discovery process at pharmaceutical and agrochemical companies world-wide. 

In order to better serve this large user-base and provide a more sustainable software development infrastructure, Dr. Pearlman founded Optive Research in 2003, which was subsequently purchased by Tripos, Inc. in 2005.

Dr. Pearlman received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Michigan.

Following postdoctoral work at the University of Wisconsin, he joined his present faculty.

Asked for comment, Dr. Pearlman replied, "I am flattered to be counted amongst past recipients of the Award and pleased that our software has proven so useful.  It’s utility is due, in large part, to the programming talents of Dr. Karl M. Smith who I’ve been privileged to have as a colleague and friend."