Marc Ferrer's Biography

Marc Ferrer, Director, 3D Tissue Model Laboratory, NIH/NCATS

Marc Ferrer is currently the director of the 3D tissue model laboratory at NCATS. He graduated with a BSc degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Barcelona, Spain, in 1989, and received his Ph.D. degree in Biological Chemistry from the University of Minnesota, in 1994. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University from 1995-1999, where he used structure-based chemical approaches for the development of anti-HIV small molecules. He joined the Department of Automated Biotechnology at the Merck Research Laboratories in 1999, where he became Director of Assay Development and High Throughput Screening. In 2010, he joined the NIH Chemical Genomics Center where he worked with investigators in the academic community to implement high throughput screening and medicinal chemistry programs for the discovery of small molecule probes to study protein function in vitro and in animal models of diseases. In the last four years, he has led the implementation of a 3D Tissue Model Laboratory at NCATS, a multidisciplinary group that uses 3D tissue biofabrication techniques, including 3D Bioprinting, to create assay models of human live tissues in multi-well plate format for drug discovery. Dr. Ferrer has co-authored more than 120 peer-reviewed scientific publications.