Hugo Villar

Hugo O. Villar is currently Associate Dean for Professional and Continuing Education at UC San Diego Extension, where he oversees programs in areas as diverse as Arts and Humanities, Engineering, Healthcare, Applied Math, Life Sciences and Business, as well as support areas including Innovation and Institutional Research and Instructional Services. His technical interest has been in the application of computers to diverse problems in the life sciences and development of new technologies for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. 

Dr. Villar is one of the founders of Altoris Inc., a San Diego-based firm that develops IT products for the life sciences industry since 2003. His technical interest has been in the application of computers to diverse problems in the life sciences and in the development of new technologies for the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. He was VicePresident of Chemoproteomics at Triad Therapeutics, a San Diego biotechnology company, from 2001 until 2004, where he developed fragment-based drug discovery technologies, and patented bioinformatics techniques. From 1992 until 2001 he held several positions at Telik, Inc., a company focused on the development of oncological products, ultimately becoming Vice President of Discovery Technologies. Dr. Villar worked at IBM, SRI International and the Molecular Research Institute. As a result, he has published over 80 technical peer-review publications and holds over 18 patents in different aspects of drug discovery and computational techniques in the life sciences. Dr. Villar holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Universidad Nacional de La Plata (Argentina) and a Masters in Business Administration, with emphasis on Health Care and Pharmaceutical Management from the University of Colorado.