Mark R. Kelley

Mark R. Kelley, Ph.D., is the Associate Director of Basic Science at Indiana University Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center (IUSCCC) and the Betty and Earl Herr Professor in Pediatric Oncology Research and Professor, Department of Pediatrics. He is also Professor in Ophthalmology, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Pharmacology & Toxicology and Adjunct Professor, Eugene and Marilyn Glick Eye Institute. He is also the Glenn W. Irwin, Jr. M.D. Research Scholar and Bantz-Petrino Translating Research into Practice Scholar and co-leads the Cancer Drug Discovery and Development Program (CDDD), IUSCCC. Dr. Kelley’s work has focused on translational research in DNA damage and repair and redox signaling, specifically, to determine how those activities can be exploited therapeutically to treat a variety of diseases. Specifically, he has focused on the enzyme, Redox effector factor-1/apurininc/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1 (Ref-1 or Ref-1/APE1), a therapeutic target in cancers and other diseases such as diabetic retinopathy (DR), diabetic macular edema (DME) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). He discovered and has been developing redox-specific inhibitors of Ref-1. Dr. Kelley is the Chief Scientific Founder and Officer of Apexian Pharmaceuticals, an integrated drug development company focused on the Ref-1 target platform to produce new therapeutics for DR/DME and other diseases with alterations of similar pathways regulated by Ref-1. Apexian Pharmaceuticals, entered into an agreement with Ocuphire Pharma, granting Ocuphire an exclusive worldwide sublicense to Apexian’s Ref-1 Inhibitor program, including its lead drug candidate APX3330, for all ophthalmic and diabetic indications. Dr. Kelley has a B.A from DePauw University, M.S. and Ph.D. from Louisiana State University and was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at The Rockefeller University.