PhD in Chemistry at the Northwestern University and Biochemist from the Universidad de Chile. In adittion of being the co-founder and scientific director of the Fundación Ciencia & Vida, he is the driving force behind the venture Andes Biotechnologies, where he leads a research program involving the development of a potentially universal treatment against cancer. Discoverer of the vaccine against hepatitis B, the virus of hepatitis C and recognized as being the first to sequence the genome of the AIDS virus, he was awarded with the National Prize of Applied Science and Technology in 2002 by the Chilean Goverment.