Michalis Hadjithomas is passionate about developing innovative computational biology strategies to support lead discovery. He joined LifeMine as Director, Head of Genomics in 2018 and since then he has overseen the development of the Computational Genomics efforts of the company. These include the implementation of scalable genome assembly and annotation pipelines to create data rich genomic resources. He has also guided the development and implementation of novel search algorithms, combining comparative genomics and evolutionary biology analyses, that fueled the discovery of novel Genetically Encoded small Molecules (GEMs) and drug candidates. He was promoted to Senior Director of Genomics in 2021 and then Vice President in 2022 

Before joining LifeMine, Michalis was the Microbiome Lead at DNAnexus, where he led the development of a cloud platform for the analysis of microbiome data. Before that, he led implementation of a Biosynthetic Gene Cluster (BGC) analysis portal and collaborated in various BGC and GEM discovery efforts at the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Before joining JGI, he used bioinformatics approaches to improve the genome structures and annotations of various parasitic eukaryotes at the J. Craig Venter Institute. 

Michalis is a Fulbright Scholar who has received a B.Sc. in Biology from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University, where he studied the molecular evolution of the histone fold protein motif.