Holger Puchta

Holger Puchta is chair of plant molecular biology at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). After receiving a PhD at the MPI Munich, he showed at the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel that molecular scissors can cut DNA in multicellular eukaryotes. As group leader at the Leibnitz Institute for Plant Genetics, Puchta was the first to demonstrate different ways of genome engineering in plants. For his work, he was nominated “Pioneer of Plant Biotechnology” by PBJ and twice received an ERC advanced grant.