About Tim Martins
Job title: Director and Principal Scientist, Quellos High Throughput Screening Core
Degrees: PhD ’84
Career stage: Late-career
State of practice: Seattle, Washington
Current practice settings: Research – academic
Lived career experiences/transitions:
- 17 years in BioTech Industry after PhD then back to Academia (Inst for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine/UW SOM)
Graduation year from the UW School of Medicine: 1984
Fellowship: Post Doctoral Fellowship in BioLabs at Harvard University
Specialty/subspecialty: PhD Pharmacology
Research or other professional interests: Laboratory Automation, Drug Discovery/Screening, Cancer Drug Sensitivity Test Diagnostic
Tim’s Bio: After a BS in Biochemistry at UC Riverside, PhD in Pharmacology at UW and Post Doctoral Fellowship at Harvard University, I became one of the original scientists at ICOS Corporation and remained there for its entire 17 years of operation. Serving as Director of Biomolecular Sciences and Technology, my department performed all high throughput screening (HTS) assays for ICOS and was the primary provider of target-based, primary cell-based and pharmaceutical profiling data to project leaders and medicinal chemists involved in chemical optimization programs at the company. Besides providing high throughput screening and chemical optimization program support, my department oversaw ICOS’ chemical repository that included library acquisition, storage, inventory and distribution functions. Prior to becoming departmental head, I served as an Associate Director, Research and was instrumental in ICOS’ Bench to “First-in-Man” approach to research and was directly involved in their PDE5 inhibitor (Cialis®) and PDE4 inhibitor (clinical entries) discovery/optimization programs. My training, experience and expertise dovetails nicely with the needs of the HTS core at the University of Washington where I’m serving as Director and Principal Scientist. Besides providing screening services to internal and external to the University researchers, I developed the Cancer Drug Sensitivity Test Diagnostic, a precision medicine tool that guides attending physician’s decisions on personalized therapeutic choices for treating their patients.