George M. Martin

George M. Martin (June 30, 1927 – December 17, 2022) was an American biogerontologist. He was a faculty member at the University of Washington from 1957 until the end of his career. Martin was a professor emeritus in the Department of Pathology, adjunct professor of genome sciences, and director emeritus of the University of Washington's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.
Martin is best known as one of the founders of modern biogerontology.
Biography
Martin was born in New York City, the son of a police officer. Martin attended less than a year at the Cooper Union School of Engineering, and one year at the College of the City of New York before serving in the US Navy from 1945 to 1946. He moved to Alaska at age 19, and held various jobs including playing trumpet in a jazz band and working for a railroad company. After two years at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Martin completed his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Washington in 1949 before completing his medical doctorate from the same institution in 1952. He subsequently completed his internship at the Montreal General Hospital, followed by a residency in anatomic pathology at the University of Chicago. In 1957, Martin accepted a faculty position at the University of Washington in the Department of Pathology, where he founded the Clinical Cytogenetics Laboratory. Martin became the founding director of the University of Washington Medical Scientist Training Program in 1970.
Martin served as the Scientific Director of the American Federation for Aging Research and as president of the Tissue Culture Association and the Gerontological Society of America. He served as a scientific editor and served on editorial boards of many scholarly journals, including Science, Age and Ageing, Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, Aging Cell, Ageing Research Reviews, Geriatrics and Gerontology International and Alzheimer's Disease Review. Martin was also the chairman of the scientific advisory board for The Ellison Biomedical Foundation.
Career
Martin's early work focused on the neurobiology of Wilson's disease and the function of caeruloplasmin, the underlying gene responsible for this disorder. This work served as a catalyst for Martin to learn about genetics, as supported by Arno Motulsky, founder of the University of Washington department of Medical Genetics. Martin also contributed to early work surrounding the techniques and use of human cell culture, including describing donor covariates that contributed to replicative limits in culture.
Martin's major research focus involved using genetic approaches to elucidate the pathobiology of aging and age-related diseases. Martin's work provided important insights into multiple topics in the field of geroscience. His group conducted genetic linking studies identifying loci associated with familial forms of Alzheimer's disease, a discovery that led to the recognition of amyloid beta (Aβ) in the pathology of that disorder. Martin's group separately identified the genetic defect causing the aging disease Werner syndrome, and its underlying contributory mechanisms to the disorder. His studies provided the first evidence that epithelial cells from arteries, especially from parts that develop severe atherosclerosis, have limited potential to divide. He and colleagues demonstrated that senescent cells cannot be returned to a replicative state when their cytoplasm is combined with cytoplasm from normal, young cells. Martin's laboratory was the first to demonstrate the accumulation of somatic mutations in human epithelial cells during the aging process. His later research used genetic engineering in mice to elucidate mechanisms of aging and Alzheimer's disease.
Martin was not as well known as a futurist, but some of Martin's ideas predate predictions of better known futurists such as Ray Kurzweil and Vernor Vinge, and are similar to those eventually championed in the field. In 1971, for example, Martin described a process for achieving a condition equatable to immortality using a scientific process now termed mind uploading:
Honors
Sigma Xi
Eleanor Roosevelt International Cancer Research Fellow, 1968-1969
Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Faculty Scholar Award, 1978-1979
Alpha Omega Alpha, 1980
Gerontological Society of America Brookdale award, 1980
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1982
University of Washington School of Medicine Outstanding Alumnus Award, 1987
National Institutes of Health Merit Award, 1989
Allied Signal Achievement Award in Aging, 1990
National Academy of Medicine, 1992
American Aging Association Research Medal, 1992
Gerontological Society of America Donald B. Kent award, 1993
American Federation for Aging Research Irving S. Wright award, 1996
Paul Harris Fellow, Rotary International, 1998
Paul Glenn Foundation Award, 1998
Distinguished Scientist Award, University of Urbino Faculty of Sciences, 1998
World Alzheimer Congress Lifetime Achievement Award, 2000
Fondation IPSEN Longevity prize, 2002
American Aging Association Distinguished Scientist Award, 2004
Shober Prize, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 2005
Trustee Emeritus, Buck Institute for Age Research, 2006
Honorary Alumnus (NIMH-sponsored Summer Research Institute in Geriatric Psychiatry), 2008
Dart/New York University Biotechnology Achievement Award, 2011
SENECA Medal for Research into Aging, Industrial Club of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany, 2011
Inaugural Science Award of the Buck Institute for Research in Aging, 2011
References
External links
Faculty webpage and CV
1927 births
2022 deaths
Biogerontologists
University of Washington alumni
University of Washington faculty
Life extensionists
Members of the National Academy of Medicine
People from New York City