The nephew ofIsrael Gelfand, the son of the mathematician Sergei Gelfand. Dr. Gelfand graduated from the Moscow State University (MSU) with a degree in mathe- matics. Since then he worked in the fields of bioinformatics and molecular evolu- tion and obtained the Candidate of Sciences degree in Mathematics and Biophysics from Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Biophysics, Pushchino, and then the Doctor of Sciences degree in Biology and Molecular Biology from Research Institute for Genetics and Selection of Industrial Microorganisms (GosNIIGenetika). Dr. Gelfand held research positions at Institute of Protein Research and at GosNII Genetika, and the position of Director of Science at Integrated Genomics, Moscow. Today, Dr. Gelfand is Professor of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics at MSU, Vice- Director for Science at the Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems RAS (ITTP), and Head of IITP Research and Training Center of Bioinformatics. Dr. Gelfand is a well-established bioinformatics specialist in the in- ternational scientific community. His research encompasses comparative genomics, systems biology, molecular evolution, transcriptomics, metagenomics. Currently he is studying co-evolution of transcription factors and their recognition sites, micro- evolution of bacterial genomes on the strain level, evolution of alternative splicing, three-dimensional structure of chromatin and epigenetics.