Valentin is a founder and Chief Technical Officer of Mensura Health. He has been instrumental in setting up academic collaborations that resulted in the creation and characterization of the initial successful aptasensor surface for a Mensura target. Valentin has >35 years of professional experience in the biotech industry, including 17 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he was the head of the CNS Ion Channel Drug Discovery group. While at BMS he headed a group that first cloned and expressed  a number of important neuronal potassium channels, including BK channels and KCNQ 2-5. The group discovered modulators of these channels, including the clinically-tested BK activator BMS-204352. He was later the Vice- President of Ion Channel Biology at Scion Pharmaceuticals, CSO of Knopp Neurosciences and Head of Research at Elan Pharma. He is currently an Assoc. Professor Adjunct at Yale School of Medicine, where he maintains a research program in synaptic physiology and neurodegeneration, and a co-Founder of GlioQuell in London, UK. Valentin obtained his BS in Biology from UC, Irvine and his PhD in Physiological Psychology/Neuroscience from UC, Riverside.