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Dr. Marina Walther-Antonio is an associate consultant in the Department of Surgery, with a joint appointment in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. She is an Assistant Professor in the Microbiome Program, within the Center for Individualized Medicine. While an undergraduate Dr Walther-Antonio joined the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) to study the geochemistry and microbiology of the subsurface of Mars and its Earth analogues. This research continued until she completed her postdoctoral training at Mayo Clinic as a research fellow in the Microbiome Program, transitioning the evolutionary and ecological microbiome approaches and concepts to the medical field. Her research focuses on the study of the microbiome role in human health and disease, in particular cancer and reproductive health. Active research efforts include the study of the microbiome role in endometrial and ovarian cancer with translational preventive, early detection and treatment research goals. She also performs technology development in her laboratory, in particular microfluidics and microbial single-cell technologies for point-of-care applications. In addition, Marina continues to be actively involved in astrobiological research and the technology under development is being utilized to study International Space Station samples under the BIOMEX project.

She has filed multiple patents based on research discovery and technology developments with patient care applications