Martin’s undergraduate education was at Queen’s University Belfast where he studied Biochemistry. He remained at Queen’s where he obtained a PhD investigating ER stress and the unfolded protein response under the guidance of Professor Koen Vandenbroeck and Professor Christopher Scott. From 2010 to date, he has worked in the lab of Professor Kevin Harrington at the Institute of Cancer Research London. His research focuses on preclinical studies aimed at improving response rates to radiotherapy in head and neck cancer. This has centred on the exploitation of defects in DNA repair and cell cycle regulation as a means to selectively sensitize cancer to radiotherapy. He has previously worked on HSP90 inhibitors, and carried out some of the earliest work on CHK1-radiotherapy preclinical studies. More recently his work has focused on the ATR inhibitor Ceralasertib. ATR inhibitors have shown promise in earlier phase clinical trials, with Ceralasertib entering phase II trials in combination with radiotherapy. Recent preclinical research he has been involved in has shown modulation of the inflammatory tumour microenvironment due to the combination of radiotherapy and ATR inhibition. This, and other research in the field has firmly placed the DNA damage response upstream of the cytosolic nucleic acid sensing cGAS-STING pathway. With DNA repair inhibitors in combination with radiotherapy capable of inducing type-I interferon signalling. His current work investigates the interplay between the tumour cell specific effects of radiotherapy in combination with DNA damage response inhibitors and how they interact with non-tumour cells in the tumour microenvironment.