Cathie Martin

Catherine Rosemary Martin (born April 1955)[4] is a Professor of Plant Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and project leader at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, co-ordinating research into the relationship between diet and health and how crops can be fortified to improve diets and address escalating chronic disease globally.

[5][6][7][8][2][9] Martin received a first class honours degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge.

[12][13][14] After a period as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cambridge[15][16] she moved to the John Innes Centre's department of genetics in 1983.

In 2022 Martin's laboratory produced genetically manipulated tomatoes containing high levels of a precursor to vitamin D. These were scheduled for field trials, and intended to improve dietary intake of vitamin D.[17][18] With Liam Dolan, Alison Mary Smith, George Coupland, Nicholas Harberd, Jonathan Jones, Robert Sablowski and Abigail Amey she is a co-author of the textbook Plant Biology.

[22] Cathie's research into Purple Tomatoes gained her and Eugenio Butelli BBSRC's most promising innovator award in 2014.