Marten completed his PhD in the MS analysis of synthetic polymers at Edinburgh University in 1999.   On completion of his studies he worked for Waters Corporation for nine years in both commercial and scientific roles, including spearheading the development of MALDI imaging combined with ion mobility separation.

He and his family moved to Adelaide in 2009 where he took up a role with the Lysosomal Diseases Research Unit at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital and later SAHMRI.  Here he and his team used mass spectrometry to study lipids, glycosaminoglycans, neurotransmitters and proteins in mucopolysaccharidoses and Gaucher disease. 

In 2019, Marten became the Head of SAHMRI’s Proteomics, Metabolomics and MS-Imaging Core Facility.  His research interests include comprehensive high throughput characterisation of patient derived samples using lipidomics and proteomics, and the in-situ analysis of lipids and other small molecules in tissues using laser-based mass spectrometry.