Members

Christoph Bock is a Principal Investigator at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a Professor of [Bio]Medical Informatics at the Medical University of Vienna. Christoph studied computer science and bioinformatics at the University of Mannheim and completed his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, followed by postdoctoral research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. His research group combines high-throughput experimental biology (genome sequencing, epigenetics, CRISPR screening, systems & synthetic biology) with computational research (bioinformatics, machine learning, artificial intelligence), in order to dissect immune regulation and to improve diagnosis and therapy for cancer and immune disease. He is an elected member of the Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and has received several major research awards, including the Max Planck Society’s Otto Hahn Medal (2009), an ERC Starting Grant (2016-2021), and the Overton Prize of the International Society of Computational Biology (2017).

Michael Bonelli is Assistant Professor at the Medical University of Vienna. Michael studied Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna, where he also finished his internal residency and rheumatology fellowship at the Department of Rheumatology. Within his research, he focused on the role of T cells in the pathogenesis of murine and human inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. He has spent 4 years as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. John O´Shea at the National Institute of Health where he analyzed the importance of enhancers for cell stabil-ity/plasticity particularly under pathogenic conditions in vivo. After his return in 2014, he has established a research group at the Department of Rheumatology. His particular interest is to study epigenetic modifications of T cells under inflammatory conditions.
 

Nicole Boucheron studied Cellular and Molecular Biology in Strasbourg (France) and Milan (Italy). She pursued her PhD at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Lausanne Branch (Switzerland) in the group of Immanuel Luescher. She focused on cytotoxic T-cell-activation by soluble peptide-MHC multimers, and was involved in multiple projects, which were published in high impact journals. She graduated at the University of Lausanne in 2002, followed by postdoctoral studies in the group of Wilfried Ellmeier at the Medical University of Vienna, Institute of Immunology. Her work helped to understand important pathways that regulate CD4⁺ T-cell differentiation and she also revealed an unexpected plasticity of CD4⁺ T-cells towards the CD8 lineage. For her work she received the Sanofi Aventis prize (2014). She made also important contributions to other projects in the Ellmeier laboratory, which led to several co-author publications. Since 2018 she established her own research group focusing on the molecular control of T helper cell activation and differentiation during immune responses and disease. Current projects involve molecular determinants for the differentiation of murine and human naïve CD4⁺ T cells into T follicular helper cells and tissue adaptation of Th2 effector cells during allergic airway disease, with a particular interest how class I HDAC inhibition is driving this process. Nicole Boucheron has expertise in the fields of animal disease models, multi-color-flow-cytometry, mouse genetic approaches, advanced primary cell culture techniques, proteomic and high-throughput sequencing.

Wilfried Ellmeier is Professor of Immunobiology and Head of the Institute of Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. He studied biochemistry at the University of Vienna, carried out his doctoral thesis at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP Vienna) and performed postdoctoral studies at the Skirball Institute (NYU Medical Center) in New York. His research interests focus on epigenetic and transcriptional control mechanisms that regulate T cell development and T cell-mediated immunity. He received several prizes including the START program award for highly-qualified young scientists from the Austrian Science Fund and the Novartis award for biology. Wilfried Ellmeier is a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a board member of the Austrian Science Fund. He is president-elect (2023-2024) of the Austrian Society of Allergology and Immunology (ÖGAI). He also has a strong interest in science policy and served as the President (2020-2021) of the BioMed Alliance in Europe.

Iris Gratz is Assistant Professor at the University of Salzburg. Iris studied Genetics and received her PhD in immunology from the University of Salzburg in 2005 and since then focused on skin T cell biology. She performed postdoctoral studies at the EB House Austria, Dept. of Dermatology in Salzburg (2006-2009) and in the group of Abul Abbas at UCSF in San Francisco, USA (2009-2014). In 2014 she established her own research group at the University of Salzburg. Her areas of expertise include T cell biology, skin immunology, mouse models (skin inflammation, skin grafting, xenografting), flow cytometry and signaling pathways. Her group aims to elucidate the biology of regulatory T cells in tissues. In 2014 she received the Christian-Doppler prize of the county of Salzburg.

Markus Hartl is the head of the MPL Mass Spectrometry Facility. Markus studied Ecology at the University of Vienna, performed his PhD thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, and graduated from the University of Jena, Germany (2010). He joined the lab of Iris Finkemeier at the LMU Munich, where he established the methodology for acetylomics in a collaboration with Matthias Mann at the MPI for Biochemistry (2010-2014). In 2014, Markus was appointed as head of the MPL Mass Spectrometry Facility that provides services for more than 30 research groups in the Vienna region. In his research, he develops and applies new proteomics methods to help solving biological problems.

Clarissa Campbell studied biology at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (2010) and obtained a masters in immunopharmacology at the Oswaldo Cruz foundation in Brazil (2011). In 2012, she joined the Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis Program (IMP) at Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences (USA). After obtaining her PhD in 2019, Clarissa was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Alexander Rudensky lab until 2021, when she started as an independent group leader at CeMM. Her group employs gnotobiotic mouse models, engineered bacterial strains, metabolic interventions and experimental infection to investigate the effects of metabolites on intestinal T-cell function.

Thomas Krausgruber studied genetics and received his PhD in molecular immunology, focusing on macrophage biology, from Imperial College London (UK) in 2011. He performed his first postdoc training in the group of Fiona Powrie at the Translational Gastroenterology Unit, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of Ox-ford, UK (2012-2015) addressing fundamental and disease-relevant questions of T-cell adaptation to local environments using animal models. For his second postdoc studies he joined Christoph Bock’s laboratory at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria (2015-2022) complementing his immunological background with high-throughput biology and genomics/epigenomics/transcriptomics technology. His research focuses on immune regulation in non-immune, structural cells and on the systemic interplay of structural cells with the hematopoietic system. Since 2022 he is a principal investigator and junior group leader at the Medical University of Vienna.