Cathie Martin
| Professor Cathie Martin MBE | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | British |
| Institutions | John Innes Centre, Norwich |
| Education | University of Cambridge |
|
Website http://www.jic.ac.uk/scientists/cathie-martin | |
Professor Cathie Martin MBE is a plant scientist at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, coordinating research into the relationship between diet and health and how crops can be fortified to improve diets and address escalating chronic disease globally.[1]
This research has included work on blood oranges, and purple, high anthocyanin tomatoes.
She is an MBE,[2] and BBSRC’s Most Promising Innovator 2014.[3] She is also the editor-in-chief of The Plant Cell, and is the first woman and first non-American to hold this post.[4]
Education
Cathie received a First Class Honours degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge. She then went on to obtain her PhD in Biochemistry in 1981, and was made a Cambridge University Research Fellow.[5]
Research
In 1983 Cathie left the University of Cambridge and joined the John Innes Centre’s Department of Genetics.
She was the first to identify genes which regulated cell shape in plants.[6]
In recent years, Cathie’s research has focused on diet and health, researching how crops can be fortified to combat chronic disease across the world. This research has focused on plants which contain natural chemical compounds, which can be seen as ‘natural medicines’. Examples include work researching blood oranges,[7] and high-anthocyanin purple tomatoes.[8]
Cathie’s research into these Purple Tomatoes gained her and Dr Eugenio Butelli BBSRC’s Most Promising Innovator award in 2014.
Awards and honours
- SEB President's Medal, 1990[9]
- Fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2012[10]
- Member of the Order of the British Empire, 2013[11]
- BBSRC Most Promising Innovator, 2014[12]