About us

Dan Safarpour received a B.S. in Chemistry in 1991 from the University of Arkansas Fayetteville, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Analytical Chemistry in 2001 from Rutgers University, Cook College, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Upon receipt of his B.S. in Chemistry, he joined the Altheimer Laboratory of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas and served as a Residue Chemist.

In 1993, he began employment with American Cyanamid Company, Princeton, New Jersey as an Analytical Chemist in the Toxicology Analysis laboratory. In 1994, he joined the Metabolism, Residue, Environmental Fate and Eco-Toxicology (MREE) Group as a Residue Chemist/Study Director. In 2000, American Cyanamid Company was acquired by BASF Corporation, at which time he joined the Formulations Analysis Group as a Sr. Research Chemist.

In September 2001, he joined Taxolog, Inc, a pharmaceutical/biotechnology company. As a group leader at Taxolog, he supervised Taxolog's entire analytical laboratory operations, including analytical R&D and dossier preparation for filing IND, CTX and aNDA. His responsibilities spanned process analytical, formulations analytical, drug metabolism, and bioanalytical research and development efforts.

Dr. Safarpour has been published in journals such as Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis (JPBA), Journal of Chromatography, Electrophoresis, Journal of Associations of Officials in Analytical Chemistry (JAOAC) and Journal of Pesticide Science. Per invitation from US-EPA regulatory bodies, Dr. Safarpour has contributed a chapter on Application of Capillary Electrophoresis to Pesticide Analysis to the Encyclopedia of Agrochemicals. Dr. Safarpour has given numerous oral presentations in national and international conferences in the areas of separation sciences, process and formulations analysis, human and plant metabolism, bioanalytical, and residue chemistry. His presentations have focused on the use of cutting-edge technologies such as UPLC, HPLC, CE, and GC, as well as UPLC-MS-TOF, HPLC-MS-ION TRAP and CE-MS. Dr. Safarpour has judged poster presentations at ACS functions such as the Triangle Chromatography Discussion Group (TCDG). Since 2003, Dr. Safarpour has served for over a decade on the peer review committee for prestigious journals such as JPBA, JAOAC and Electrophoresis.  Dr. Safarpour has chaired symposia “Friendly Tools for Protein” at PepCon-BIT’s 10th Anniversary of Proteins & Peptides Conference held in Fukuoka Japan.

Dr. Safarpour, by invitation from the FAO division of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and by the supervision from Argonne National Laboratory USA, has served as expert lecturer to IAEA traveling to specific countries to guide in building lab infrastructure to conduct residue testing of their own raw agricultural commodities for both domestic consumers and international export.

In early 2009, Dr. Safarpour, in conjunction with former colleagues, employees and his superiors formed this new life sciences contract research organization, Symbiotic Research, LLC.

Laura Cojocaru is the Laboratory Operations and General Manager at Symbiotic Research.  Laura graduated with a BS degree majoring in Organic Chemistry from the Chemical Engineering department of the Polytechnic Institute in Bucharest, Romania.  She continued post graduate studies encompassing Biochemistry and Bioengineering in the same institute.

Laura has extensive experience in bench chemistry at CROs out of two continents-EU & US.  Here in the US, as a product of her exceptional bioanalytical and residue chemistry experience in FDA-compliant GLP studies, combined with her organizational skills and her assertive personality she quickly rose to Sr. management roles at Huntingdon Life Sciences (East Millstone, NJ) and later at Tandem Labs/Covance (West Trenton, NJ) assuming the role of Director of Bioanalysis managing over 40 LCMS specialists.

She is a great resource to our team providing scientific, technical, and regulatory advice on all aspects of analytical chemistry especially in LCMS and bioanalysis/residue chemistry areas. Laura ensures that the team’s studies are conducted and reported to the required scientific and quality standards, complying with appropriate GLP guidelines, protocol and SOPs.

Lindsey O’Brien is the Laboratory Director at Symbiotic Research since 2021.  Lindsey graduated with honors from Lynchburg College (now University of Lynchburg) where she was a Westover Fellow in the honors program.  She obtained her Bachelor of Science in biomedical science with minors in biology and Spanish.  Lindsey joined SRL when the company opened in 2009 and grew with the company, working as a bench chemist, Principal Investigator and then Study Director.  Lindsey played a key role in implementing many procedures, instruments and tests at SRL.  She has extensive experience in the design and conduct of environmental fate, metabolism and product chemistry studies under Good Laboratory Practices.  Lindsey’s broad experience at SRL and knowledge of the company allows her to work effectively between groups, bring together team members and serve as a go-to resource.  She enjoys conducting research and problem-solving, as well as leading and mentoring a team of scientists.

Alexander J. Krynitsky (Alex) joined Symbiotic Research, LLC on June of 2016 as Director, Chemical Residues.  Alex currently assumes a wide range of business development, scientific, and technical duties associated with various animal, aquatic, plants, and soil environmental fate and metabolism projects performed at Symbiotic Research. He also serves as a mentor for younger scientists in Separation Science (LC-MS, CE/MS, and GC-MS), and in Sample Prep.  Alex is very active in the AOAC International and has been J. AOAC International Section Editor for Residues and Trace Elements since 2004.  His research interests are in developing rapid analytical methods for small molecule contaminants in foods using mass spectrometry.  Prior to joining Symbiotic Research in 2016, Alex was Chief of the Bioanalytical Methods Branch for FDA/Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition/Office of Regulatory Science until his retirement in 2016.  Prior to joining FDA in 2002, he worked for twelve years at EPA and sixteen years for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  In addition to Alex’s work at Symbiotic Research, he also serves as a Science Adviser for FDA/Office of Regulatory Affairs.  Overall, Alex has authored or co-authored over fifty publications in peer reviewed journals and book chapters and has over 100 presentations at national and international meetings.  Altogether he has forty-eight years’ experience in residue chemistry.