Katrin joined the Cai lab in November 2025 as a Research Fellow to work on the synthetic plant chromosome project. She obtained her degree in Biochemistry from the University of Potsdam and her PhD in Plant Biotechnology from the University of Copenhagen. During her PhD, in collaboration with Prof Anne Osbourn at the John Innes Centre, she investigated cytochrome P450 enzymes involved in triterpene biosynthesis in oats and other plant species. Katrin then undertook postdoctoral research with Prof Jörg Bohlmann at the University of British Columbia, characterising diterpene biosynthesis enzymes in conifers. She later returned to the UK to join Prof Alison Smith’s group at the University of Cambridge, where she contributed to several projects on algal metabolic engineering and developed modular genetic tools for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and Phaeodactylum tricornutum. Her research interests include synthetic biology and metabolic engineering in plants and algae, with a focus on enhancing the production of high-value products in these eukaryotic systems.
Outside the lab, Katrin enjoys outdoor swimming and travelling, ideally combined with sailing or hiking.