Biography

Mark J. Henderson, Ph.D., is a biology group leader in the Early Translation Branch (Thymine Team) of NCATS’ Division of Preclinical Innovation. He works with both academic and NIH investigators on a wide range of biological targets. These projects aim to identify small molecules that can be used to understand and/or alter pathogenic events. He has   designed, developed and used biochemical and cell-based screening assays across diverse technologies.

Henderson received his doctorate in cellular and molecular medicine from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from North Carolina State University. Henderson trained as a research fellow under Brandon K. Harvey, Ph.D., at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. There, he developed cell-based reporters to study endoplasmic reticulum calcium homeostasis. He has authored more than 60 peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Research Topics

Henderson’s research is focused on studying cellular processes that are not working properly across multiple disorders. He and his team are devising high-throughput screening assays to identify small molecules that can modulate disease-relevant phenotypes in the following areas:

• Neurodegeneration (e.g., Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases)
• Cancer (e.g., metastasis, central nervous system tumors)
• Rare disorders (e.g., Gaucher disease, lysosomal storage diseases, Wolfram syndrome)
• Protein folding and trafficking (e.g., small molecule chaperones, endoplasmic reticulum dysfunction, unfolded protein response)
• Macrophage function (e.g., rare diseases, tumor-associated macrophages, inflammation)
• Fibrosis (e.g., relaxin receptor 1)

Henderson also has interests in developing novel reporters and screening technologies. For example, he and his colleagues developed high-throughput cellular thermal shift assay methods that can detect small-molecule binding to a protein target. He also is exploring the use of epigenetic changes as the basis for high-throughput screening using ATACseq.