Maryann E. Martone, Ph.D.
Dr. Maryann Martone is Professor-in-Residence in the Department of Neurosciences and Co-Director of the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research (NCMIR) at the University of California San Diego. Following a B.A. in Psychobiology from Wellesley College in 1982, a doctorate in neurosciences from UCSD in 1990, and a post-doc at NCMIR she joined the department of neurosciences at UCSD in 1993.
Dr. Martone’s work includes the central nervous system (CNS) morphology, protein localization, imaging of neurons and their processes, neuronal alterations that occur as a consequence of ischemia, and the emerging field of neuroinformatics. She has emerged as an international leader in the rapidly evolving field of new technologies for high-resolution imaging.
Dr. Martone has been leading the development of databases for light and electron microscopic data and new techniques and software tools to acquire and represent this knowledge within realistic neuronal models. She was a major contributor in the creation of the Cell-Centered Database (CCDB), one of the first Internet databases for cell-level structural data. Her defining work on the CCDB and neuroinformatics in general has brought the Martone group international recognition.
As a member of the leadership team of the Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN) project integrating high speed networks and distributed high-performance computing for fostering large-scale collaborations in biomedical science, Dr. Martone serves as the scientific coordinator of the Mouse BIRN test bed. One of several research projects driving the development of BIRN, the Mouse BIRN test bed is dedicated to developing methods for multiscale investigations of mouse models of human neurological disease. Dr. Martone is the co-chair of BIRN’s Ontology Task Force, tasked with advancing database interoperability across each of BIRN databases by establishing a common lexicon to share knowledge sources.
Dr. Martone’s recent work has focused on building an ontology for describing the subcellular anatomy of the nervous system, and integrating the ontology into image analysis and data mining tools. Dr. Martone is a co-principal investigator in the newly awarded NIH contract to create a Neuroinformatics Framework, a national pilot project awarded to establish terminology standards for neuroscience. This work is expected to advance how neuroscientists perform concept-based queries. Dr. Martone also serves as a member of the Neuroinformatics Committee for the Society for Neurosciences
Dr. Martone’s scientific efforts have resulted in an extensive publication record and her teaching activities include both formal and individual coursework. She continues to teach the Introduction to Light and Electron Microscopy in the spring quarter. Additionally, she now teaches Introduction to Mammalian Neuroanatomy in the Fall quarter.
