Professor Cathie Martin

Cathie researches the relationship between diet and health and how crops can be fortified to improve diets and address the global challenge of escalating chronic disease.

This work has involved linking leading clinical and epidemiological researchers with plant breeders and metabolic engineers to develop scientific understanding of how diet can help to maintain health, promote healthy ageing and reduce the risk of chronic disease.

Cathie has recently initiated collaborative research in China to research on Chinese Medicinal Plants, particularly those producing anti-cancer metabolites used for complementary therapies.

Cathie was Editor-in-Chief of The Plant Cell (2008-2014) and is now an Associate Editor for Molecular Horticulture. She is a member of EMBO, AAAS, a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 2014 she was awarded an MBE for services to Plant Biotechnology, in 2019 she was elected Janniki Ammal Chair of the Indian Academy of Sciences for outstanding women in science and in 2022 she will receive the Rank Prize for outstanding contributions to research on nutrition.