_The interview was conducted by Patricia Löwe on March 12, 2025._
_Translation: Patricia Löwe_
**Patricia Löwe: In 2001, you were the first winner of the Forschungsverbund's Young Female Scientist Award (today: Marthe Vogt Award). You were 29 years old. What was the situation like for women in science back then?**
Kathrin Plath: In 2001, I had just started a postdoc position. There was hardly any imbalance between women and men when it came to postdocs, students and doctoral candidates in my field. At the time, I was applying for two labs whose principal investigators (PIs) were women and for two labs with male PIs. At the time, I wasn't really aware of this issue. Later on, I realized that there are barriers for women in research. The higher the career level, the more difficult it becomes.
However, I feel that the US has made more progress in this matter than Germany.
**PL: What may be the reason for this?**
KP: They simply took action earlier. Of course, we have not yet achieved true equality in terms of scientific staff, especially when it comes to the higher positions. But it is getting better and better.
**PL: As a doctoral student and postdoc, however, you did not feel disadvantaged.**
KP: I was a very successful student and young scientist at the time, which is why I received the award after all. Nevertheless, after my PhD, I thought very carefully about how to proceed and what I wanted to do. I was unsure, looked around in industry and consulting, and of course also applied for postdoc positions. In the end, an academic career was the best fit for what I had in mind. The award was also a deciding factor; this honor gave me self-confidence as a researcher. You know, I come from Brandenburg an der Havel; I grew up in East Germany. My mother was extremely proud when I won the award.
I defended my PhD in Berlin, but I actually wrote the dissertation at Harvard Medical School in Boston, in Tom Rapoport's lab. The title was: “Zum Mechanismus der Translokation von Proteinen in das Endoplasmatische Retikulum der Hefe” \[„On the mechanism of translocation of protein into the endoplasmic reticulum of yeast”\]. That was basic research in the field of cell biology. I am still working in basic research today, now in my own lab at UCLA.
**PL: From Brandenburg an der Havel to Los Angeles – that's a long way!**
KP: When I started studying at Humboldt-Universität in 1989, the Berlin Wall had just come down. It was an exciting time.
**PL: It seems to me that we women from East Germany had better role models in terms of emancipation than women from West Germany – because most of our mothers worked, for example. Can you relate to that?**
KP: Yes, absolutely! My mother was a chemist with a doctorate. She also held management positions in her career. She was more successful than my father was. I grew up knowing that women can and _do_ have careers. Of course, there were no women in the government in the GDR except for Margot Honecker, but that was not my daily reality. I assumed that women have the same opportunities as men because I simply had good role models.
By the way, that may also be why the situation here in the US is a bit better: a lot of attention is paid to female role models in leadership positions, including in science.
Of course, I still experienced unpleasant things here; suddenly there were professors at a higher level who wanted to dictate how my laboratory's collaborations look like or how authorship of papers should be distributed. That surprised me, but I've learned to assert myself in these situations.
**PL: What exactly was your dissertation about?**
KP: That's not so complicated. To enable cells to communicate, i.e. to transmit signals, some proteins, for example hormones, have to leave the cell in which they are produced in order to fulfill their function at a different location in the body. Normally, proteins cannot penetrate a cell membrane. A very specific cellular transport system, the endoplasmic reticulum, makes the transfer possible. The special thing about this is that the protein is inserted into the channels of the endoplasmic reticulum during its formation and is completed there. In order for the protein to leave the cell, it needs a kind of zip code, which we call the signal sequence. This sequence is recognized by the endoplasmic reticulum so that the transport can be initiated. That was the subject of my doctoral thesis. We investigated this in experiments.
Tom Rapoport, in whose lab I worked, later researched the structure of the endoplasmic reticulum channels and was able to confirm the predictions I made in my thesis. I was very pleased about that!
**PL: What are you researching today?**
KP: As I said, after my PhD I wasn't sure what to do next. Tom Rapoport was a great mentor. He paid a lot of attention to detail – that was good training. Following his example, I stayed in basic research but changed topics.
Today, I work with the nucleus and how gene regulation works. For example, I research the phenomenon of X-inactivation. Women have two X chromosomes, while men only have one. There can only be one functioning X chromosome in an embryo for it to be viable. That is why the genes on one X chromosome, the maternal or paternal one, are deactivated in women during embryogenesis. How exactly this works is one of the things we are researching in my lab.
**PL: How does the current political situation affect your research?**
KP: It's been a bad year so far. First, the fires in Los Angeles – my house is still standing, but four of my colleagues lost theirs. My house is in a canyon, and there were and are constant mudslides when it rains. All of that took me months – it's still costing me a lot of time.
Trump's election happened almost as an aside. It's not yet clear what will happen next. It's possible that our funding for so-called indirect costs – electricity, water, etc. – will be cut back significantly. Then I would really have to think about how we can save money and possibly let employees go. That would be the end of our work. It's also difficult to get certain additional grants. Some grant funds have even already been eliminated by the Trump administration.
On the other hand, it is not easy to return to Germany because of various bureaucratic barriers. I really enjoy living here in Los Angeles. The work at UCLA is fulfilling, but if Trump's plans become reality, there will be hardly any reason to stay here.
**PL: Finally, what advice would you give to young female scientists?**
KP: Up until my PhD, science was actually the path of least resistance for me. I was good at what I did and I enjoyed doing it. At some point, though, during the doctoral thesis at the latest, there comes a moment when you really have to want to follow this career path. It's a tough job – also because you're constantly forced to seek funding for your own research. The most important thing is to build up a network of supporters. I won the Young Female Scientist Award because someone nominated me. The network is important for getting invited to give talks and for being treated favorably in reviews. In science, it's impossible to survive as a lone fighter.