Mark T. Muller

Biography

Dr. Muller founded TopoGEN, Inc. in 1991. He serves as TopoGEN’s Chairman of the Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Muller has been directly responsible for a number of SBIR funding initiatives allowing the growth of the company from 2004- present. He has recently secured joint ventures with other companies to develop novel diagnostics in autoimmune diseases (Multiple Sclerosis, Scleroderma) and bladder cancer. As a result, TopoGEN has been actively expanding its core business. Throughout an almost 30 year career, Dr. Muller has directed successful academic research programs funded by NIH, ACS, NSF and a number of state and local agencies. He has published extensively in peer review journals and has patents on his work. From 1980-2004, Dr. Muller worked at Ohio State University where he participated in the formation of the Department of Molecular Genetics in 1986, one of first academic programs of this nature in the country; he rose to the rank of Full Professor in 1992. In 1991, Dr. Muller did a one year sabbatical with Prof. Michael Smith, a nobel laureate for pioneering work on mutagenesis at the University of British Columbia. In addition, Dr. Muller provided leadership at the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center in Columbus where he was Co-Director of Experimental Therapeutics Program. With clinical collaborators, he performed bench to bedside experiments and was actively involved in the Phase I and II programs. TopoGEN was initially founded in the OSU Business Incubator (Edison Foundation) and has been awarded a number SBIR grants that have led to spin off companies. In 1997 the company was awarded the Edison Prize as the most innovative start up company in Ohio. In 2004, Dr. Muller was recruited to join the University of Central Florida where he participated in the formation of a new Medical School and he joined the College of Medicine in 2007 where he is also Professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology. Dr. Muller sits a several Company Advisory Boards (besides TopoGEN) and has founded other biotechnology startups including Visual Genomics, Methylation Ltd., DNA Protein, Ltd. and CareCyte Biologicals. He has multiple international collaborations with colleagues in South Africa, Italy, Japan, Korea and the UK and is currently the Director of the Cancer Research Consortium of Central Florida. Dr. Muller is active on editorial boards and acts as an outside reviewer for several different journals, including PNAS, EMBO Journal, Cancer Research, PLoS Biology and Genetics.

Research Interest

Oncology, Immunology, Medicine science