Kamil Demski: Plant Physiology First Author

Kamil Demski, first author of “Phosphatidylcholine:diacylglycerol cholinephosphotransferase’s unique regulation of castor bean oil quality”

Current Position: Postdoc at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Education: a PhD in Biological Sciences – Discipline of Biochemistry from Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology of University of Gdańsk and Medical University of Gdańsk

Non-scientific Interests: creative writing, foreign languages, novels, comics, cooking, baking

Brief bio:

Growing up I wanted to be a plastic surgeon and make a lot of money, but unfortunately (fortunately) somewhere along the way I became an idealist and ended up in academia. Two issues that have been always important to me are malnutrition and environmentalism, therefore it is not a coincidence that my scientific interests wandered towards oilcrops and plant lipid biochemistry. Throughout my BSc, MSc, PhD and postdocs I was lucky to be guided by scientists, who are both incredible researchers and great people: Antoni Banaś, Per Hofvander, Ida Lager and Sten Stymne.

Currently, I have two main research activities. The first one is focused on further investigating plant lipid synthesis and lipid remodeling enzymes in crops, as well as in plants accumulating unusual fatty acids. The second one concerns designing synthetic sinks to accumulate target lipid and other organic compounds in plant factories. In the future I see myself still dedicated to both pursuits in order to (at least partially) address global environmental and nutritional challenges, which are near and dear to me.