Martin Kampmann

Martin is a member of Engine Biosciences’s Scientific Advisory Board, with deep experience in functional genomics technology development and applications in cancer and neurodegenerative disease. He is an Associate Professor in the UCSF Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at UCSF. He received his BA and MA in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) from Cambridge University and his PhD from the Rockefeller University, where he used biophysical approaches to characterize the architecture and dynamics of the nuclear pore complex with Dr. Günter Blobel.

As a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Jonathan Weissman’s group at UCSF, Martin spearheaded the development of a functional genomics platform that makes it possible to robustly identify human genes relevant to a cellular process of interest, and to elucidate cellular pathways and networks using systematic genetic interaction maps. One important application of the screening platform is the identification of genes that control the sensitivity of cells to a given drug. This approach can identify the relevant cellular targets of new compounds, predict drug-resistance mechanisms, and guide the rational development of combination therapies.

Currently, the goal of Martin’s research is to understand how human cells maintain their proteins in a functional and balanced state. The cellular pathways safeguarding proteome function and balance are termed the “proteostasis network.” Martin aims to elucidate how the proteostasis network dynamically adapts to the needs of the cell and how it is challenged and rewired in diseases, especially cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Identification of proteostasis factors that control formation, spread, and clearance of protein aggregates associated with neurodegenerative diseases will shed light on the disease mechanisms and reveal potential therapeutic targets.

Martin has received several highly prestigious awards, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (2015), the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation’s Allen Distinguished Investigator Award (2015), and the NIH Pathway to Independence Award (2014). The Kampmann lab is affiliated with the Innovative Genomics Initiative and the Paul F. Glenn Center for Aging Research at UC Berkeley and UCSF.