Dr. Griffin is the Chairman of the Department of Molecular Therapeutics at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida. Prior to this, Dr. Griffin was Chief Scientific Officer & Executive Vice President of Research at ExSAR. Previously Dr. Griffin was Senior Director in the Basic Chemistry Department at Merck Research Laboratories. In his most recent position at Merck, Dr. Griffin was responsible for compound profiling and discovery phase Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) for the nuclear hormone receptor programs (PPARg, PPARa, GR, LXR, FXR, and SERMS), GPCR programs (MCR-4), and protease programs (DP-4). In addition, Dr. Griffin was a key contributor to the discovery and development of DMP-777 (Phase IIb), a human leukocyte elastase inhibitor.

Dr. Griffin directed a group of over 40 scientists focused on the application of a wide-range of technologies to the drug discovery process. He was also responsible for the development of technology to rapidly characterize very large sets of chemical compounds and large collections of natural products. Dr. Griffin received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Virginia under the direction of Professor Donald F. Hunt. In collaboration with Professor Hunt and John R. Yates, III, Dr. Griffin was involved in the development of biological mass spectrometry. He later researched at the California Institute of Technology as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the laboratories of Professor Leroy E. Hood where he was involved in systems biology.