NEW YORK, Dec. 12—Longtime Virginia biotech booster and bioinformatics researcher Robert M. Schwartz was found dead on Monday, the victim of an apparent slaying, the Associated Press reported today.
Schwartz, 57, was found by his neighbors in his rural northern Virginia farmhouse. Police and medical examiners are investigating the death, the AP reported.
Schwartz was executive director for R&D and university relations at Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology in Herndon. A founding member of the Virginia Biotechnology Association, he had long played a major role in developing the biotechnology industry in that state.
Schwartz had been with the center for 14 years. He was previously leader of a industrial consortium coordinated out of Georgetown University that created the first national online database of DNA sequence information.