The new Director of the Life Sciences Centre of Vilnius University, Prof. Daumantas Matulis, started his work today. Prof. Gintaras Valinčius, the former Director of the VU GMC, handed over the keys of his office to the new Director on Friday.
Prof. Matulis is the Head of the Biothermodynamics and Drug Discovery Unit at the Institute of Biotechnology of VU LSC. He was elected Director by the VU LSC Council. 
D. Matulis was born in 1970 in Vilnius, graduated from Vilnius University in 1993 with a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Biochemistry, and completed his PhD studies at the University of Minnesota, USA, in 1998, where he became a postdoctoral fellow in Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology.
Since 2001, Mr Matulis has worked for Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development, a drug development company in the USA. In 2005, he returned to Lithuania and headed the Biothermodynamics and Drug Discovery Unit at the Institute of Biochemistry, VU GMC.
Prof. D. Matulis is the President of the Lithuanian Society of Biochemists and a member of several other societies. He has been awarded the Lithuanian Science Prize, international awards in foreign countries, has published over 150 scientific publications, and patented a number of inventions.