Martin Tenniswood

Dr. Martin Tenniswood co-founded miR Scientific in 2013. As Chief Scientific Officer, Martin is responsible for the company’s overall scientific vision and research strategy. Martin also plays a key role in the translational research and commercialization processes and has been involved in many other areas of the organization in his role as a co-founder.

Martin previously spent 10 years as an Empire Innovations Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University at Albany. Concurrently, Martin served as the Director of the Cancer Research Center at the University at Albany from 2009-2018. Previous to his tenure at the University at Albany, Martin was the Coleman Chair of Life Sciences at the University of Notre Dame from 1998-2007. Martin earned his Ph.D in Biochemistry from Queen’s University (Kingston, ON, Canada) in 1979, and his B.Sc (Hons) from Trent University (Peterborough, ON, Canada) specializing in organic chemistry in 1973.

He has authored and published more than 135 peer-reviewed papers and chapters and has edited two books. Since starting his independent career as a Canadian Medical Research Council Scholar at the University of Ottawa in 1983 Dr. Tenniswood’s research has focused on the study of hormone dependent cancers, including prostate, breast and endometrial cancer. His basic research focused on understanding the hormonal control of cell death in these cancers and in in developing new therapies for hard-to-treat hormone dependent cancers, particularly castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and inflammatory breast cancer. His lab has used a variety of high throughput, high content methodologies, including mRNA- and miRNA-based transcriptomics to understand the biology that leads to tumor progression and drug resistance.

In the course of his academic career he has mentored 31 graduate students, 19 residents and postdoctoral fellows, 47 of whom are still active in research.

Dr. Tenniswood has consulted for numerous commercial entities including Eli Lilly, Millennium Pharmaceuticals Cytochroma and Serono Pharmaceuticals and he has served as scientific reviewer for Medical Research Council of Canada, the National Cancer Institute of Canada, and the National Institute of Health (including the Pathology B study section and the NCI SPORE Review Panels).

Martin has served on the national Susan G. Komen for the Cure Review Panels and volunteered extensively with the local affiliates in Indiana and Northeastern New York region. In recognition of his contributions to the local affiliates he was awarded the status of Pink Tie Guy.