Recognizing Plant Physiology first authors: Christian R. Boehm

Christian R. Boehm, first author of Recent advances and current challenges in synthetic biology of the plastid genetic system and metabolism

Current Position: Research Associate at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology, Potsdam, Germany / Research Affiliate of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, Cambridge, England

Education: PhD in Plant Sciences, MPhil in Scientific Computing (University of Cambridge), MRes in Systems & Synthetic Biology (Imperial College London), BSc in Biochemistry (Technical University of Munich)

Non-scientific Interests: Dancesport, outdoor activities, cats

Brief bio: As an undergraduate student, I chose to pursue a scientific career in the nascent field of synthetic biology to address global challenges in the areas of health, food supply, and climate change using engineered cell-free and microbial systems. During my doctoral research at the University of Cambridge, I extended the synthetic biology approach to multicellular plants and on the side founded the young European synthetic biology network EUSynBioS. Currently, I am focused on establishing plant plastids as a chassis for complex synthetic biology and metabolic engineering applications.