Kurt Marek, PhD, is chief research development officer at Sanford Burnham Prebys. His duties will include supporting and strengthening the scientific competitiveness of the institute and advancing its mission by advising on funding portfolios, providing strategic direction for research administration and innovation initiatives, and overseeing grant proposal development for principal investigators, faculty, and others.
Marek joined Sanford Burnham Prebys in 2024, coming from Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where he served as executive director of grants development, overseeing grants and contracts, research development and research compliance at the La Jolla-based nonprofit basic research institution.
Prior to joining Salk in 2018, Marek worked for nearly seven years at the National Institutes of Health, first as program director and Small Business Innovation Research coordinator for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and then as deputy director in the Office of Translational Alliances and Coordination at NHLBI.
He was also an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the NHLBI (2010-2011).
Marek earned undergraduate degrees in biology and humanities from the University of California San Diego and a doctorate in neuroscience from UC San Francisco, where he was a Howard Hughes predoctoral fellow.
He later studied spinal cord development as a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow at UC San Diego. Working in the lab of Nicholas Spitzer, PhD, Marek used genomics to identify new roles for electrical activity in the nervous system and to characterize the underlying molecular mechanisms.