CFFT Lab, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
Martin Mense, PhD, is the Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery and CFFT Lab Director for the CF Foundation. He joined the CFF in 2009, and in 2011 he was charged with establishing an independent and fully Foundation-operated and -funded laboratory, which he has been heading since 2012. Currently the Lab has 46 employees, and its activities cover most aspects of cystic fibrosis related in vitro biology, from small molecule screening to gene editing and stem cell biology to functional assays, primary cell banking, next generation sequencing and bioinformatics.
Martin’s early graduate education was in physics with degrees from Portland State University in Portland, OR, and the University of Konstanz in Konstanz, Germany. He then went on to study cellular and molecular physiology and received a Ph.D. from Yale University in 2000. Later that year he joined the laboratory of the late David Gadsby at Rockefeller University (New York City, NY), where for six years he worked on the CFTR protein, applying molecular biology and biochemistry tools as well as electrophysiology to elucidate relationships between the protein structure and function. Many hundreds of mutations in this protein can cause the cystic fibrosis disease. After a one-year stint at Synta Pharmaceuticals (Lexington, Mass.) as an electrophysiologist on a CRAC channel inhibitor program, in 2007 Martin was hired by Epix Pharmaceuticals (Lexington, Mass.) as the Head of CF Biology for a CFTR small molecule modulator program funded by the CF Foundation. An important part of his work for the Foundation is providing advice and support for the funded programs that look to repair and increase CFTR function.
S15--Challenges to Efficient, Effective, & Durable CFTR Rescue
Friday, September 27, 2024
2:30 PM – 4:30 PM ET