Dr. William (Bill) Welsh’s research interests cover a broad spectrum of applications in computer-aided molecular modeling & design including drug discovery, computational structural biology, and the rational design of high-performance synthetic polymers. Promising candidates emanating from these rational design approaches are synthesized and tested for their material and biological properties. His laboratory is also actively engaged in the development of novel computational tools useful for accelerating molecular discovery and for pattern recognition. Dr. Welsh’s publication record includes over 250 articles in journals and books, 600 abstracts from presentations at professional scientific meetings, and several patents and patent applications. Over the past five years, Dr. Welsh has received over $5M in research funding from state, federal, and private sources. He serves as the Co-PI on UMDNJ's IAIMS Operational Phase Grant.

Dr. Welsh holds the Norman H. Edelman Endowed Professorship in Bioinformatics and Computer-Aided Molecular Design in the Department of Pharmacology at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RWJMS) in Piscataway NJ, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). Concurrently, he serves as Director of the UMDNJ Informatics Institute that coordinates University-wide initiatives in bioinformatics, chemical informatics, and computer-aided molecular modeling & design. In this capacity, Dr. Welsh is also Director of the UMDNJ Graduate Program in Bioinformatics. Dr. Welsh is a member of various centers, institutes, and schools at UMDNJ and Rutgers University, including the Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the New Jersey Center for Biomaterials, Rutgers University School of Pharmacy, and the Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Institute (EOHSI) jointly of UMDNJ and Rutgers.

Dr. Welsh earned a BS degree (magna cum laude) in Chemistry from St. Joseph’s University (Philadelphia., PA) and a Ph.D. degree in Theoretical Physical Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA). He then joined the Procter & Gamble Company (Cincinnati, OH) as a research scientist and was promoted to group leader within four years. He then returned to academe as a senior postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Prof. James E. Mark, Distinguished Professor of Polymer Science at the University of Cincinnati (Cincinatti, OH). In 1985, Dr. Welsh joined the University of Missouri (St. Louis) as an Associate Professor of Chemistry and rose through the ranks to Distinguished Professor in 1998. During this period he was appointed Director, Laboratory for Computer-Aided Molecular Design, at the University of Missouri. In 2001, Dr. Welsh joined UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School to assume his present role.

Dr. Welsh is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Teacher of the Year Award (1983 and 1985), the St. Louis Research Award (1998), the University of Missouri-St. Louis Chancellor’s Research and Creativity Award (2001), the University of Missouri Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2001), and most recently the Norman H. Edelman Endowed Professorship in Bioinformatics at UMDNJ-RWJMS (2003). He serves on the editorial board of several scientific journals and is a consultant for several biopharmaceutical companies.

In 1999, Dr. Welsh founded GenChemiCs (www.genchemics.com), an outsourcing company that specializes in the development and application of advanced decision-support tools for pattern recognition, drug discovery, and computer-guided molecular design.