Prof. Irini Doichinova graduated from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Higher Medical Institute – Sofia (now the Medical University – Sofia) in 1986. Since 1987 she has been a PhD student, Assistant Prof., Senior and Head Assistant Prof., Associate Professor and Full Professor in the Department of Chemistry. In 1992 Irini Doytchinova obtained a PhD degree with a thesis  titled “Computerized drug design of A1 and A2 adenosine receptors antagonists”, in 1997 – a postgraduate degree in Clinical Pharmacy and in 2008 – a DSc. degree with a thesis titled “In silico study of peptides-epitopes of T-lymphocytes“. From 2000 to 2005, she was a Research Scientist, Senior Research Scientist and Visiting Scientist at the Jenner Institute at Oxford University (formerly Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research). Now Prof. Doytchinova is the Head of the Department of Chemistry, second term. She teaches Physical and Colloidal Chemistry and Pharmacokinetics for Masters in Pharmacy and Theoretical Chemistry for PhD students. The scientific interests of Prof. Doytchinova are in the fields of Drug Design and Bioinformatics. She is the author of over 140 scientific publications with more than 5000 citations (h-index 33), 4 textbooks on Physical Chemistry and Pharmacokinetics in Bulgarian and English, many reviews on scientific papers, theses and habilitations. She is a Principal Investigator of several national and European research projects. Member of the Commission on Academic Ethics at the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science. Member of the Bulgarian Scientific Society of Pharmacy. Winner of the Pythagorus Prize in 2016. Among the top 1% of the most cited scientists in the world in the field of Pharmacology and Pharmacy and among the top 2% for overall scientific contribution, according to the annual reports of Stanford University for 2020 and 2021.

Top 5 most cited publications:

1. Doytchinova I, Flower D. VaxiJen: a server for prediction of protective antigens, tumour antigens and subunit vaccines. BMC Bioinformatics. 2007;8(1):4.
2. Vicini P, Zani F, Cozzini P, Doytchinova I. Hydrazones of 1,2-benzisothiazole hydrazides: synthesis, antimicrobial activity and QSAR investigations. European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. 2002;37(7):553-564.
3. Dimitrov I, Bangov I, Flower DR, Doytchinova I. AllerTOP V.2—a server for in silico prediction of allergens. Journal of Molecular Modeling. 2014;20(6):2278.
4. Patronov A, Doytchinova I. T-cell epitope vaccine design by immunoinformatics. Open Biol. 2013 Jan 8;3(1):120139.
5. Dimitrov I, Naneva L, Doytchinova I, Bangov I. AllergenFP: allergenicity prediction by descriptor fingerprints. Bioinformatics. 2014;30(6):846-51.

Scientific Projects:

1. Novel acetylcholinesterase inhibitors for treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Contract DN-3/9/2016, Bulgarian Scientific Fund, Principal Investigator: Prof. Irini Doytchinova.
2. National Center for High Performance and Distributed Computing. National Roadmap for Scientific Infrastructure, Government of Bulgaria, 2017 – 2023, MES, Contract D-201/12/10/2017, Annex D01-387/18.12.2020 г., Team Leader from MU-Sofia: Irini Doytchinova.
3. Centre of Excellence on Informatics and Information and Communication Technologies, Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, 2018 – 2023, OP “Science and Education for Smart Growth”, MES, Contract BG05M2OP001-1.001-0003. Team Leader from MU-Sofia: Prof. Irini Doytchinova.
4. ICT in Science, Education and Security, Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, 2019 – 2023, MES, Team Leader from the Faculty of Pharmacy, MU-Sofia: Prof. Irini Doytchinova.
5. Src dimerization — Contract 882247/H2020-MSCA-IF-2019. Supervisor of the individual fellow: Prof. Irini Doytchinova.

Drug Design and Bioinformatics Lab: http://www.ddg-pharmfac.net