Trailblazing organizations, including the Gates Foundation, Michael J. Fox Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health, have partnered with Gradient to fund Dr. Martinov's innovative work. Gradient recently announced a collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceutica of Johnson & Johnson to advance discovery of new antivirals for neglected tropical diseases. Dr. Martinov also serves as both the Chief Technical Officer and CEO of FAR Biotech, a company dedicated to developing small-molecule preclinical candidates to combat complex drug targets. FAR Biotech’s flagship project uses Dr. Martinov’s technology to discover novel Nrf2 activators as potential disease modifying therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases.
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The Martinov family has a legacy of mathematical curiosity, which is at the root of Dr. Martinov’s desire to utilize geometric results in his work. His mother, Marina Martinova, is a published mathematician with a long career in teaching. His late father, Nikola Martinov, was a renowned Bulgarian mathematician who is celebrated for his contributions to graph theory and finite geometries. This mathematical inclination continues with Martin’s daughter, Boyana Martinova, who is currently pursuing her PhD in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Ms. Martinova is not only deeply committed to her research but also collaborates with her father on groundbreaking projects through their partnership in PCVP.

Under the guidance of two mathematicians at home, Dr. Martinov’s academic journey began with an early desire to represent natural phenomena as mathematical objects. This developed into a proclivity for physics, which eventually led him to the field of biotechnology. He earned his PhD in molecular biophysics with an emphasis on quantum chemistry from Florida State University. Since the early 1990s, Dr. Martinov has been working to describe biomolecular interactions from first principles. His algorithms involve mapping molecules onto topological manifolds to predict desired properties and expedite pharmaceutical discovery.
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Dr. Martinov's pioneering efforts integrating machine learning into drug discovery, especially implementing hypergraphs as fuzzy decision networks, have revolutionized the understanding of disease modeling. This approach has been instrumental in the fight against neglected tropical diseases such as malaria, African sleeping sickness, as well as neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
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Beyond drug discovery, Dr. Martinov sees immense potential for his mathematical models in diagnostics. His inspiration stems from research on canine scent detection for bladder cancer diagnosis, leading him to view urine as a diagnostic medium rich with information. A fervent proponent of simplifying complex scientific concepts, Dr. Martinov recognizes the growing influence of machine learning and artificial intelligence in life sciences. His work exemplifies the harmonious fusion of technology and medicine, signaling the dawn of a new era in healthcare advancements.
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Other Relationships
‍Dr. Martin Martinov is the founder of Gradient Biomodelling LLC (Gradient), Dr. Martinov is also co-founder of Park City Venture Partners (PCVP), as well as co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Luventix, Inc. As part of founding PCVP, Dr. Martinov granted to PCVP exclusive use of his modeling techniques for diagnostic applications, other than those relating to drug discovery, development or identification. PCVP has granted to Luventix a perpetual and exclusive license to IP resulting from these modeling techniques for diagnosing and identifying diseases in humans, including cancer, chronic and infectious diseases.