Dale Martin

Biography: Dale Martin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the University of Waterloo and heads the NeurdyPhagy Lab studying protein mislocalization and proteostasis deficiencies in Huntington disease (HD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

He obtained his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Microbiology & Immunology at Dalhousie University. His co-op opportunities led him to study fat metabolism and protein structure and function, which led to the discovery of lipid nanoparticles for drug delivery to the brain. He completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Cell Biology at the University of Alberta studying how protein lipidation redirects proteins during programmed cell death. After identifying a new function of lipidated huntingtin, he joined the Hayden Lab at the University of British Columbia to study fatty acylation and autophagy in HD. He continued his research briefly in Philadelphia at Temple University in the Shriners Hospitals Pediatric Research Center in Dr. Gareth Thomas’s lab developing high-throughput drug screens to identify small molecules that can be used to target fatty acylation to prevent nerve damage and promote nerve repair.