Jon C. Mirsalis
Managing Director, Division Operations, and Director, Preclinical Development, Biosciences Division

Jon C. Mirsalis, Ph.D., D.A.B.T., has overall responsibility for management of SRI's drug discovery, drug development, and biomedical research activities in SRI's Biosciences Division. Mirsalis first joined SRI in 1981 as a Staff Scientist, and subsequently served as a Program Director, Department Director, Laboratory Director, and most recently as the Associate Director of the Biosciences Division. He also currently serves as Director of SRI's Toxicology and Pharmacology Laboratory, a 70-person group that is the largest contractor of preclinical toxicology studies to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Mirsalis has a broad background in drug development, and has personally been involved in the development of more than 50 therapeutics that have entered clinical trials. He has also published extensively in the areas of genetic toxicology, mechanisms of carcinogenesis, development of therapeutics for cancer and infectious disease, and use of transgenic animals; he is the author of more than 125 publications, book chapters, and abstracts. Before joining SRI, Mirsalis was a postdoctoral fellow at the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology, where he developed the in vivo-in vitro hepatocyte DNA repair assay, which is now widely used as a screen to identify potential carcinogens by government and industry. Mirsalis has an Adjunct Faculty appointment with the University of California-Santa Cruz, where he lectures regularly on genetic toxicology and carcinogenesis. He is a Past President of the Genetic and Environmental Toxicology Association of Northern California and a past Treasurer of the Environmental Mutagen Society.

Mirsalis received his B.S. degree in zoology/molecular biology from Kent State University, his M.S. degree in genetics from North Carolina State University, and holds Ph.D. degrees in toxicology and genetics from North Carolina State University. He has been certified by the American Board of Toxicology since 1983.

Mirsalis is also internationally known as a piano accompanist for silent movies. He performs regularly at several major film festivals and has recorded scores for many silent films released on DVD or to cable TV stations.