Dr Katja Kostelnik

Katja assists academics at the University to turn ideas and inventions emerging from the life sciences into commercial opportunities. Together with her colleagues in the Life Sciences team, Katja provides support for the evaluation, protection and licensing of technologies to achieve global impact.

Since joining Cambridge Enterprise, Katja has worked closely with academics in order to support translational research funding applications, protect inventions via patenting and support the marketing and licensing of technologies arising from the University. Katja also helps academics to access Cambridge Enterprise’s network of expertise by connecting them with Entrepreneurs in Residence, consultants and mentors as well as University programmes such as iTeams Cambridge, Experts in Residence at the Cambridge Academy of Therapeutic Sciences, and EnterpriseTECH at Cambridge Judge Business School.

Prior to joining Cambridge Enterprise, Katja worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Queen Mary University of London in the field of microvascular research, investigating the role of endothelial junctional proteins in inflammatory diseases.

Katja studied Biology with a focus on Human and Molecular Biology at the Saarland University in Germany with research projects in the area of prostate cancer and obesity. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the Leipzig University in Germany having worked on novel peptide-drug conjugates and therapeutic peptides in the fields of breast cancer and obesity. During her PhD she has worked in collaboration with non-university research institutes such as the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research as well as small biotech and pharma companies. She is co-author on six academic publications.

Katja joined Cambridge Enterprise in March 2018.