Katrin Watschinger is an associate professor in the Institute of Biological Chemistry at the Biocenter of the Medical University of Innsbruck (Austria). After her studies of chemistry at the Innsbruck University and a PhD on neuronal calcium channels Katrin Watschinger continued her scientific curriculum at the Medical University of Innsbruck in the field of ether lipids. In 2010, she discovered the genetic identity of alkylglycerol monooxygenase (AGMO). With an Erwin-Schrödinger fellowship from the FWF Katrin spent 12 months at the University of Oxford where she was able to launch the generation of the so far only Agmo knockout mouse which is now established in her lab. Recently, she and her team could identify also the gene coding for plasmanylethanolamine desaturase (PEDS1), another orphan enzyme in ether lipid metabolism. This finding now allows her to dissect the roles of different types of ether lipids, the plasmalogens and plasmanyl lipids, in physiology and pathophysiology.