George M. Martin
George M. Martin (June 30, 1927 – December 17, 2022) was an American biogerontologist and longtime University of Washington (UW) faculty member. He helped found modern biogerontology and was a professor emeritus in the Department of Pathology, an adjunct professor of genome sciences, and the director emeritus of UW’s Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.
Martin was born in New York City to a police officer. He had a varied early life, briefly studying engineering and science, then serving in the U.S. Navy from 1945 to 1946. He lived in Alaska, played trumpet in a jazz band, and worked for a railroad company. He earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Washington in 1949 and his medical degree there in 1952. After internships and a pathology residency, he joined UW’s faculty in 1957 and started the Clinical Cytogenetics Laboratory.
He became the founding director of the UW Medical Scientist Training Program in 1970. Martin served as Scientific Director of the American Federation for Aging Research and as president of the Tissue Culture Association and the Gerontological Society of America. He contributed to many journals as an editor or board member, including Science, Age and Ageing, Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, Aging Cell, and others.
Martin’s early research focused on Wilson’s disease and the role of caeruloplasmin, which sparked his interest in genetics. He helped develop early cell culture techniques and studied factors that limit how cells grow. His main focus was using genetics to understand aging and age-related diseases. His group helped link certain genes to familial Alzheimer's disease and contributed to recognizing amyloid beta as part of the disease’s pathology. They identified the Werner syndrome gene defect and explored how aging affects cells.
His work showed that arterial and epithelial cells have limited division in aging, that some aging cells cannot be reactivated, and that aging human epithelial cells accumulate somatic mutations. Later studies used mice to study aging and Alzheimer's disease. Martin was also known for ideas about the future of aging research, including early thoughts about brain preservation and related concepts.
George M. Martin died in Seattle, Washington, at the age of 95.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 18:26 (CET).