Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Languages
Timeline
Honors and Awards
Additional Leadership Experience
Affiliations
Publications
Generic

Violeta L. Marin

Deerfield,IL

Summary

Accomplished Principal Research Scientist at AbbVie Inc. with 17 years expertise in Drug Discovery in the fields of Targeted Protein Degradation, Antibody-Drug Conjugates, Chemical Biology and Molecular Probes. Proven track record in advancing clinical candidates and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. Skilled in synthetic organic chemistry and scientific writing, driving innovation and enhancing research capabilities through strategic initiatives and open communication.

Overview

27
27
years of professional experience

Work History

Principal Research Scientist

AbbVie Inc.
07.2017 - Current

Member of Protein Degradation Platform Team.

  • Led early-stage exploratory initiatives to internalize cutting-edge Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD) technology.
  • Evaluated TPD as a novel mechanism of action (MoA) across diverse targets of interest and guided chemistry efforts for multiple successful portfolio programs, resulting in clinical candidates such as ABBV-101 and ABBV-787.
  • Enabled TPD project transitions from hit generation through lead optimization to candidate nomination.
  • Advanced TPD platform capabilities, including developing linker-ligase collection, mechanistic MoA probes, and internalizing and operationalizing direct-to-biology (D2B) technology.
  • Promoted a culture of open communication among team members, fostering collaboration and innovation throughout the department.
  • Published findings in leading scientific journals, raising the profile of AbbVie's research capabilities.
  • Championed the adoption of cutting-edge technologies and tools for enhanced research capabilities within the organization.

Senior Scientist II

AbbVie Inc.
07.2013 - 07.2017

Member of Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) Leadership Team

  • Extensive experience in the design and synthesis of linkers and payloads for ADC projects with application in oncology. Contributed to early efforts that lead to identification of clinical candidate ABBV-155.

Member of Molecular Probes and Chemical Biology Teams

  • Responsible for the design and synthesis of biorthogonal modular probes; applied affinity methods for chemoproteomic analysis of small molecules for on-, and off-target identification and quantification from native biological sources.
  • Contributed directly to identification of two new targets identifications as well as developed screening assays that led to oncology clinical candidates ABT-251 and ABT-833.
  • Contributed to the development of in-cell covalent fragment screening platform at AbbVie.
  • Simultaneously managed several complex projects, meeting all pertinent milestones.
  • Championed interdisciplinary collaboration across departments, fostering innovation and creative problem-solving among colleagues.

Sr. Scientist I

Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie Inc (since Sept 2012)
02.2008 - 07.2013

Member of Molecular Probes Team

  • Developed biochemical assay probes supporting validation and in-licensing of an antibody, leading to delivery of oncology clinical candidates ABT-806 and ABT-414
  • Delivered high-throughput screening reagents by optimizing FRET substrate synthesis for HCV protease inhibitors, contributing to development of antiviral candidates ABT-148 and ABT-450
  • Contributed to the development of a general kinase probe kit enabling direct TR-FRET binding assays for 90% of the serine/threonine kinome and routine kinome profiling at AbbVie.
  • Developing modular linker kits for versatile conjugation to small molecule cores and reporter groups, supporting screening efforts.
  • Expert in peptide chemistry; design and synthesis of complex peptides, including cyclic and multi-disulfide refolded peptides

Postdoctoral Fellow, Advisor Prof. Milan Mrksich

University of Chicago
05.2005 - 02.2008
  • Label-free detection of protein-protein and protein-peptide interactions using self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) of alkanethiols on gold and MALDI-TOF
  • Development of protein arrays on SAMs of alkanethiols on gold surfaces

Exchange Graduate Student

Symbion CISMI Laboratories (Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Molecular Interactions), University of Copenhagen
09.1998 - 04.1999
  • Organic synthesis: development of novel method for 1,2 – carbonyl transposition

Education

Ph.D. - Bioorganic Chemistry, Advisor Prof. Bruce Armitage

Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
05-2005

Physical Organic Chemistry

University of Bucharest
Bucharest, Romania
05-1999

Bachelor of Science - Chemistry

University of Bucharest
Bucharest, Romania
05-1997

Skills

  • Drug Discovery
  • Medicinal Chemistry
  • Synthetic Organic Chemistry
  • Targeted Protein Degradation
  • Antibody Drug Conjugates
  • Chemical Biology and Molecular Probes
  • High-throughput screening
  • Maestro
  • Knime
  • Library Design
  • Compound Progression
  • Collaborative research
  • Advanced data analysis
  • Scientific writing

Languages

English
Native or Bilingual
French
Professional Working
Spanish
Elementary
Romanian
Native or Bilingual

Timeline

Principal Research Scientist

AbbVie Inc.
07.2017 - Current

Senior Scientist II

AbbVie Inc.
07.2013 - 07.2017

Sr. Scientist I

Abbott Laboratories and AbbVie Inc (since Sept 2012)
02.2008 - 07.2013

Postdoctoral Fellow, Advisor Prof. Milan Mrksich

University of Chicago
05.2005 - 02.2008

Exchange Graduate Student

Symbion CISMI Laboratories (Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Molecular Interactions), University of Copenhagen
09.1998 - 04.1999

Ph.D. - Bioorganic Chemistry, Advisor Prof. Bruce Armitage

Carnegie Mellon University

Physical Organic Chemistry

University of Bucharest

Bachelor of Science - Chemistry

University of Bucharest

Honors and Awards

  • AbbVie 2024 R&D President Award for innovative work combining targeted protein degradation and antibody drug conjugates
  • AbbVie 2023 Discovery Research Impact Award for work in the targeted protein degradation field
  • Abbott Laboratories - Innovation award - Innovation award for ‘Probes and Kinome Profiling’
  • Carnegie Mellon University - 2004 Harrison Legacy Dissertation Special Prize for outstanding work
  • Socrates-Erasmus European Commission Scholarship, University of Copenhagen, Denmark 1998
  • National Merit Scholarship for Graduate Education, Romania 1997-1999

Additional Leadership Experience

AbbVie – R&D Pathway to Cures Hackathon, 2024

  • Participated in a 2-day ‘hackathon’ with a diverse research team refining proposal “Cell type specific tumor dependent engagement of myeloid cells to elicit tumor specific immunity to cure cancers”

Chair, IUPAC | CCCE 2021 – Chemistry for Health, 2021

  • Organized a 2-day symposium (virtual) with the theme “New Treatments against Old Diseases: Redefining Small Molecule Therapeutics”

Chair, Gordon Research Conference – Bioorganic Chemistry, 2015

  • Organized a 7-day conference under the theme “Chemical Tools for Decoding Biology and Advancing Medicine (~30 speakers and 200 participants); Responsible for fundraising of more than 70K in funds for supporting this conference.

Affiliations

  • Member of the American Chemical Society, 2003-Present
  • Member of University of Chicago Materials Research Science Engineering Center (MRSEC), 2005-2008

Publications

1. Ferran Nadal-Bufi, Paulin L. Salomon, Fabio de Moliner, Kathy A. Sarris, Zhi Wang, Rachel D. Wills, Violeta L. Marin, Xiaona Shi, Kuo Zhou, Zhongyuan Wang, Zhou Xu, Michael J. McPherson, Christopher C. Marvin, Adrian D. Hobson, Marc Vendrell; A fluorogenic platform for real-time imaging of subcellular payload release in antibody-drug conjugates; J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2025

2. Yunan Zheng, Anamika Singh, Zeqi Niu, Violeta Marin, Jonathon Young, Paul Richardson, Marcus L. Hemshorn, Richard B. Cooley, P. Andrew Karplus, Scott Warder, Anil Vasudevan, Justin M. Reitsma, Ryan A. Mehl; “An in-cell approach to evaluate E3 ligases for use in targeted protein degradation” Journal of the American Chemical Society 2025 147 (25), 21560-21574

3. Jing, H.; Richardson, P.; Potts, G.; Senaweera, S.; Marin, V.; McClure, R.; Banlasan, A.; Tang, H.; Kath, J.; Patel, S.; Torrent, M.; Ma, R.; Williams, J. An Automated High-throughput Affinity Capture-Mass Spectrometry Platform with Data-Independent Acquisition. J. Proteome Res., 2024, accepted

4. Thomas L. Lynch IV; Violeta Marin, Ryan McClure, Colin Phipps, Judith A. Ronau, Milad Rouhimoghadam, Ashley Adams, Soumya Kandi, Malerie L. Wolke, Andrea Shergalis, Paul Richardson, Stephan J. Kakavas, Gekleng Chhor, Gary J. Jenkins, Kevin Woller, Scott Warder, Anil Vasudevan, Justin M. Reitsma; Quantitative measurement of degrader rate of targeted protein degradation, ACS Chem. Biol. 2024, 19, 7, 1604–1615 (co-first author)

5. Shergalis, Andrea G; Marin Violeta L., Rhee, David Y.; Senaweera, Sameera; McCloud, Rebecca L.; Ronau, Judith A.; Hutchins, Charles W.; McLoughlin, Shaun; Woller, Kevin R.; Warder, Scott E. Vasudevan, Anil; Reitsma, Justin M.; CRISPR Screen Reveals BRD2/4 Molecular Glue-like Degrader via Recruitment of DCAF16; ACS Chem. Biol. 2023, 18, 2, 331–339

6. Rowley, Ann; Brown, Brian; Stofega, Mary; Hoh, Hana; Mathew, Rebecca; Marin, Violeta; Ding, Rong-Xian; McClure, Ryan; Bittencourt, Fabiola; Chen, Jun; Gururaja, Tarikere; Kinoshita, Taisei; Wang, Xueqing; Rivkin, Alexey; Woller, Kevin; "Targeting IRAK3 for Degradation to Enhance IL-12 pro-inflammatory Cytokine Production"; ACS Chem. Biol. 2022, 17, 6, 1315–1320

7. Richardson, Paul L.; Marin, Violeta L.; Koeniger, Stormy L.; Baranczak, Aleksandra; Wilsbacher, Julie L.; Kovar, Peter J.; Bacon-Trusk, Patricia E.; Cheng, Min; Hopkins, Todd A.; Haman, Sandra T. et al. Controlling cellular distribution of drugs with permeability modifying moieties; MedChemComm (2019), 10(6), 974-984.

8. Upadhyay, Anup K.; Judge, Russell A.; Li, Leiming; Pithawalla, Ron; Simanis, Justin; Bodelle, Pierre M.; Marin, Violeta L.; Henry, Rodger F.; Petros, Andrew M.; Sun, Chaohong; Targeting lysine specific demethylase 4A (KDM4A) tandem TUDOR domain - A fragment-based approach; Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters (2018), 28(10), 1708-1713.

9. Stockmann, Henning; Todorovic, Viktor; Richardson, Paul L.; Marin, Violeta; Scott, Victoria; Gerstein, Clare; Lake, Marc; Wang, Leyu; Sadhukhan, Ramkrishna; Vasudevan, Anil; Journal of the American Chemical Society (2017), 139(46), 16822-16829.Cell-
Surface Receptor-
Ligand Interaction Analysis with Homogeneous Time-
Resolved FRET and Metabolic Glycan Engineering: Application to Transmembrane and GPI-
Anchored Receptors

10. Curtin, Michael L.; Heyman, H. Robin; Clark, Richard F.; Sorensen, Bryan K.; Doherty, George A.; Hansen, T. Matthew; Frey, Robin R.; Sarris, Kathy A.; Aguirre, Ana L.; Shrestha, Anurupa, et al; “SAR and characterization of non-
substrate isoindoline urea inhibitors of nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT)” Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters (2017), 27(15), 3317-3325.

11. Marjanovic, Jasmina, Baranczak, Aleksandra, Marin, Violeta, Stockmann, Henning, Richardson, Paul L. and Vasudevan, Anil; Development of inverse electron demand Diels–Alder ligation and TR-FRET assays for the determination of ligand–protein target occupancy in live cells, Med. Chem. Commun., 2017,8, 789-795

12. Judge, Russell A.; Zhu, Haizhong; Upadhyay, Anup K.; Bodelle, Pierre M.; Hutchins, Charles W.; Torrent, Maricel; Marin, Violeta L.; Yu, Wenyu; Vedadi, Masoud; Li, Fengling et al. Turning a substrate peptide into a potent inhibitor for the histone methyltransferase SETD8, ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters (2016), 7(12), 1102-1106

13. Stoeckmann, Henning; Marin, Violeta L.; Nimmer, Paul; Balut, Corina M.; Davidson, Donald J.; Richardson, Paul L.; Vasudevan, Anil; Glycan-
Mediated, Ligand-
Controlled Click Chemistry for Drug-
Target Identification, ChemBioChem, 2016, 17(2), 150-154

14. Hua Tang, Shannon Duggan, Paul L. Richardson, Violeta Marin, Scott E. Warder, Shaun M. McLoughlin, Target Identification of Compounds from a Cell Viability Phenotypic Screen Using a Bead/Lysate-Based Affinity Capture Platform, 2015, Journal of Biomolecular Screening - DOI: 10.1177/1087057115622431

15. Mrksich, Milan; Marin, Violeta; Patrie, Steven M. “Immunoassays and Characterization of Biomolecular Interactions using Self-Assembled Monolayers” PCT Int. Appl. 2008, WO 2008118959 A1 20081002, 94pp

16. Marin, V. L., Tim Bayburt, Steve Sligar and Milan Mrksich “Functional assays of membrane bound proteins with SAMDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry”, Angewandte Chemie Internatinal Edition, 2007, 46, 8796-8798.

17. Marin, V. L.; Armitage, B. A. “Hybridization of Complementary and Homologous Peptide Nulceic Acid Oligomers to a Guanine Quadruplex-Forming RNA” Biochemistry  2006, 45(6), 1745-1754

18. Marin, V. L. “Thermodynamic and Kinetic Investigation of Nucleic Acid Molecular Recognition by Synthetic Oligomers and Small Molecules 2005; Doctoral Thesis

19. Marin, V. L.; Armitage, B. A. “RNA Guanine Quadruplex Invasion by Complementary and Homologous PNA Probes” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005; 127(22); 8032-8033.

20. Roy, S; Marin, V. L; Ly, D. H.; Armitage, B. A. “Homologous Hybridization of Guanine-Rich Peptide Nucleic Acids to DNA and RNA Quadruplexes” Polymer Preprints; 2005, 46(1), 145-146.

21. Marin, V. L.; Armitage, B. A. “Invasion of an RNA Quadruplex by Complementary and Homologous PNA Probes” Polymer Preprints; 2005, 46(1), 151-152.

22. Marin, V. L.; Roy, S.; Armitage, B. A. “Recent Advances in the Development of Peptide Nucleic Acid (PNA) as a Gene-Targeted Drug”, Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy 2004, 4(3), 337-348

23. Marin, V. L.; Hansen, H. F.; Koch, T.; Armitage, B. A. “Effect of LNA Modifications on Small Molecule Binding to Nucleic Acids, Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics 2004, 21(6), 841-849

24. Kushon, S.A.; Bradford, K.; Marin, V. L.; Suhrada, C.; Armitage, B.A.; McBranch, D. and Whitten, D. “Detection of Single Nucleotide Mismatches via Fluorescent Polymer Superquenching”, Langmuir 2003, 19, 6456-6464

Abbott/AbbVie Patents and Disclosures

1. Bian, Zhiguo; Burke, Jason; Jia, Zhaozhong; Jiang, Xingyu; Katcher, Matthew; Mali, Venkat Reddy; Marin, Violeta; Noey, Elizabeth; Okano, Akinori; Rivkin, Alexey; Scholz, Spencer; Woller, Kevin; Zhao, Xianrui; Adams, Ashley; Biannic, Berenger; Mortezaei, Shahab; Payette, Joshua; Zablocki, Jeffery; Pyrimidines for degrading Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (2023) WO 2023/183811 A1

2. Boghaert, Erwin R.; Ackler, Scott L.; Tao, Zhi-Fu; Wang, Xilu; Doherty, George; Marin, Violeta L.; Sullivan, Gerard M.; Song, Xiaohong; Kunzer, Aaron R.; Welch, Dennie S.; et al; Antibody drug conjugates with cell permeable Bcl-xl inhibitors” PCT Int. Appl. (2016), WO 2016094505 A1 20160616

3. Tao, Zhi-Fu; Doherty, George; Wang, Xilu; Sullivan, Gerard M.; Song, Xiaohong; Kunzer, Aaron R.; Wendt, Michael D.; Marin, Violeta L.; Frey, Robin R.; Cullen, Steve C.; et al, Preparation of Bcl-xL inhibitory compounds having low cell permeability and antibody drug conjugates containing them” Tao Z-F at al., PCT Int. Appl. (2016), WO 2016094509 A1 20160616

4. Degradomers as antibody drug conjugate (ADC) warhead for the development of therapeutic agents – Shen, Yu et al., invention disclosure - ABVID50511, 2016

5. Haight, Anthony R; Judd, Andrew S; Hobson, Adrian D; Sullivan, Gerard M; Wendt, Michael D; Shen, Xiaoqiang; Cullen, Steven C; Welch, Dennie S; Harlan, John E; Marin, Violeta L; Nathan Bennett; Rick A Powers; Kruger, Albert W; Jeffery Bien; Ji, Jianguo; Gish, Kurt C.; Tian, Yu; Kim, Han K “Stable Cysteine ADC Attachment Technology”, Disclosure Number: ABVID50452, 2015

6. BCL-XL Inhibitory Compounds and Antibody Drug Conjugates Including the Same, ABV12129USL1, 2014

7. Robert D. Hubbard, Carol K. Wada, Jack Henkin, Andrew J. Schneider, Violeta L. Marin, Paul L. Richardson, Suzanne M. Norvell, Laura M. McKay “Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADC) employing reactive cytotoxic toxins”, Abbott - Confidential Memorandum of Invention Disclosure # 11431USL1, 2011

8. Erwin R. Boghaert, Zhi-Fu Tao, Paul L Richardson, Violeta L. Marin, Andrew J. Souers, Scott Ackler “Apoptosis restoring agent conjugated to a disease targeting carrier for the treatment of cancer and other diseases”, Abbott - Confidential Memorandum of Invention Disclosure #42119, August 2011

9. Richardson P.L.; Johnson, E.F.; Marin, V. L.; Marcotte, P.A.; Soni, N.B.; Kovar, P.; Lai, C.C.; Wood, K.W.; Curtin, M.L.; “Kinome profiling probes, composition of matter and method of use,” Abbott - Confidential Memorandum of Invention Disclosure #25690, Sept. 19, 2009.

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