Dr. Robert Boehm

After studying biology in Freiburg i. Breisgau (1988-1994), Robert Boehm obtained his Ph.D. at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Biology, the University of Tübingen (Prof. Dr. Lutz Heide, 1999). He wrote his dissertation on metabolic engineering approaches to plant-derived therapeutic substances. In 1999, he joined Prof. Heide Schnabl’s group at the Institute of Plant Molecular Physiology and Biotechnology, Bonn University, to develop duckweed as an expression system for recombinant therapeutic proteins (molecular farming). To expand his expertise in plant biotechnology, he then spent some time at the Institute of Glycobiology at Oxford University as well as at the Institute of Agricultural Genetics in Hanoi/Viet Nam. Dr. Boehm is an expert in plant transformation and in vitro-culture and has worked as a lecturer at the Universities of Bonn and Dortmund.

In 2007, Dr. Robert Boehm joined Ornamental Bioscience GmbH as an R&D Manager. The company aimed to develop genetically engineered ornamental plants with improved tolerances against biotic and abiotic stress. In 2012, the company was taken over by Klemm + Sohn GmbH, a part of the Selecta one group. Selecta one is a leading breeder, producer, and marketer of vegetatively propagated ornamental plants worldwide. Here, Robert Boehm is heading the group´s central laboratory facility in Stuttgart, which includes plant pathogen diagnostic, in vitro culture, and biotechnological research.