Since 2006, Dr. Mikhail S. Shchepinov has been the co-founding Chief Scientific Officer of Retrotope, Inc., and is Principal Investigator on this Retrotope Rapid Response Award. Born in Moscow, USSR, Dr. Shchepinov received his MS in chemistry and biotechnology from the Mendeleev Institute of Chemical Technology, Moscow, and a PhD in bioorganic chemistry from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Moscow, in 1994. He completed postdoctoral research in the Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford, UK, from 1995‰ÛÒ2000, focusing on the areas of DNA chip technology, combinatorial chemistry, fluorescence, dendrimers, and surface chemistry. From 2000 to 2001, Dr. Shchepinov was a scientist at Sequenom, Inc; San Diego, CA working on methods of high throughput DNA analysis, DNA chemistry, genomics, surface chemistry, and mass-spectrometry. Thereafter, he was director of chemistry at HK Pharmaceuticals, Inc; San Diego, CA., working on mass spectrometry analysis in proteomics, protein chemistry, and protein/peptide/antibody arrays. He then returned to the UK to become director of Tridend Technologies, (a spin-off from Oxford University, UK) from 2002 to 2006, working further in genomics, proteomics, mass-tags, and mass-spectrometry analysis of biochemical markers of oxidative stress. At Retrotope (www.retrotope.com); Dr. Shchepinov has focused on the use of stabilizing isotopes as a fortification of essential nutrients to protect against diseases of aging and age-related oxidative stress.