Dr. Robert A. Holton is President and founder of MDS Research Foundation and SynCure Cancer Research Foundation. Dr. Holton is also co-founder of Taxolog, Inc. and serves as Chief Scientific Officer and as a Director. He has been a professor of chemistry at Florida State University since 1985. From 1973-1985, he served as professor of chemistry at Purdue University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. Dr. Holton's research work since 1973 has been in the area of organic synthesis of complex molecules.

Dr. Holton's research group has accomplished the total synthesis of numerous natural products over the last twenty years. Most notable are the semi-synthesis of Taxol (paclitaxel) in 1989, and the first total synthesis of paclitaxel in December of 1993. Dr. Holton's group has continued to work on taxane compounds and holds patents or patent applications to protect well in excess of one billion taxol analogs. Dr. Holton served as a postdoctoral research associate at Stanford University from 1971-1973, and graduated from Florida State University in 1971 with a Ph.D. in organic chemistry.