Francisco Schopfer is an Associate Professor and Vice-Chair for Biotechnology Development in the Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Schopfer studied biology at the University of Buenos Aires and received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the same Institution in 2001. His long-term research interests are the formation, signaling, and metabolism of electrophilic fatty acids. His laboratory focuses on lipid substrates used for fatty acid nitration, the chemical mechanism of nitrated fatty acid formation, and their reactivity with thiols to modulate signaling. Schopfer developed mass spectrometry methods to characterize nitrated fatty acids in vivo and validated quantification methods for clinical evaluation. Given these lipids' potent anti-inflammatory, protective and anti-fibrotic properties, he worked on translating these findings into the clinic with the prototypical nitrated oleic acid being evaluated in Phase II clinical trials. Other projects in his laboratory include the evaluation of furan fatty acids present in fish oils and fatty acid engineering to modulate metabolism.