Dr. Lionel Carreira was awarded the Georgia BioBusiness Academic Entrepreneur of the Year Award by the University of Georgia Research Foundation for his successes as a spirited entrepreneur and for his longstanding commitment to education and research. Established in 2010, the Georgia BioBusiness Academic Entrepreneur of the Year award recognizes a faculty member who has started a company within the past four years based on research originated at UGA. Carreira is the founder and chief executive officer of ARChem, an Athens-based company that provides a unique computational chemical modeling software program used widely in academic, government and industrial laboratories. Carreira developed ARChem's physicochemical calculator, SPARC, over a period of 15 years. SPARC uses advanced mathematical algorithms based on real-world chemical structures to estimate how different chemical substances will react in various conditions. For example, the software can accurately predict vapor pressure, boiling points and density at different temperatures and pressures. These capabilities cross numerous chemical family boundaries and cover a range of organic compounds commonly used in labs throughout the world. The software allows researchers to access critical information without ever entering the laboratory, which ultimately provides more experimental freedom for researchers working on chemistry's cutting edge.
