Johannes BUYEL is professor for Downstream Processing at the Institute for Bioprocess Science and Engineering at the Department of Biotechnology. His research focuses on the hybrid modeling of chromatographic product separation. The goal is to accelerateprocess development and reduce the associated costs. His specialinterest are sustainable plant-based production systems thatfacilitate the formation of complex proteins and small moleculedrugs. In this context Johannes is pursuing an integrated,automated approach to screen and optimize both product expressionand purification in a parallelized manner.
Email: Johannes Buyel
Website

Brigitte GASSER is leading the team on "Molecular biotechnology of yeasts" at the Department of Biotechnology. Her research aims at the molecular characterization and physiology of yeasts such as Pichia pastoris under recombinant protein production conditions, with special emphasis on oxidative protein folding, organelle-specific redox regulation connected to protein folding and secretion, and secretion related stresses (e.g. unfolded protein response, ROS formation, redox balancing). Thereby, one goal is to understand the regulation of the secretory pathway. Furthermore, she is interested in novel ways of strain engineering for improved protein secretion or the identification of novel cellular tools based on systems biology approaches such as genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics.
Email: Brigitte Gasser
Website

Reingard GRABHERR is Associate Professor at the Department of Biotechnology. Her main focus is directed towards protein expression design, cellular engineering and systems biology approaches for the production of functional proteins, virus like particles and infectious viruses. Her goals are influenza virus vaccine design in insect cells and mammalian cells as well as improving cell factories in general for production of functional proteins (e.g. enzymes) and DNA (DNA vaccine). Her core competence is design of expression cassettes and genetic engineering of production strains, needed for pharmaceutical and industrial biotechnology. Her special interest lies in improving surface display techniques in insect and mammalian cells using recombinant baculoviruses, exploring different strategies for display of functional proteins, expression of eukaryotic complex and multimeric proteins in insect cells, comparing the insect cell and yeast system in terms of display efficiency and authenticity of eukaryotic proteins and the development of cloning strategies for large and diverse protein libraries in insect and mammalian cells.
Email: Reingard Grabherr
Website

Stephan HANN is Associate Professor of analytical chemistry and principal investigator of the research group 'Instrumental Analytical Chemistry and Metabolomics' at the Department of Chemistry at BOKU Vienna. In mass spectrometry based metabolomics, his group performs metabolic profiling, metabolic flux analysis and non-targeted analysis of metabolites and intermediates in biological and environmental systems. Current method development is mainly focused on biotechnology related research and applications as well as metabolomics of the rhizosphere. Stephan Hann is responsible for metabolomic analysis within the Core Facility "Cellular Analysis" at BOKU VIBT.
Email: Stephan Hann
Website

Stefan HOFBAUER is part of the Institute of Biochemistry in the Protein Biochemistry group of at the Department of Chemistry at BOKU Vienna. His current research focus is on the elucidation of the prokaryotic heme biosynthesis pathway. Many enzymes are involved in the so-called "coproporphyrin-dependent" heme biosynthesis pathway, which is mainly utilized by Gram-positive bacteria, many of which are pathogens. A profound understanding of the structure function relationship of each individual enzyme, involved in this pathway, is essential for potential future bio-medical applications (e.g. discovery for new classes of antibiotics). Further research interests are biochemical and biophysical studies of heme enzymes in general (e.g. peroxidases, chlorite dismutases,…) to unravel the reaction mechanisms of highly interesting reactions.
Email: Stefan Hofbauer
Website

Roland LUDWIG is Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Food Science and Technology and Key Researcher at ACIB, the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology. His research interest is oxidoreductases − their screening, characterization, engineering, expression and application in biocatalytic processes, lignocellulose degradation, biosensors and biofuel cells. His team works multi–disciplinary using techniques from fungal microbiology, phyolgenetics, high–througput screening, fermentation processes, protein purification, enzymology, protein structure modeling and docking, bioelectrochmistry, enzyme engineering and biochemical reaction engineering and process scale–up.
Email: Roland Ludwig
Website

Lukas MACH is Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Genetics and Cell Biology. His research interests include: Biosynthesis and intracellular trafficking of secretory and lysosomal/vacuolar proteins, post-translational protein modifications as determinants of protein structure and function, physiological functions of proteinases and their inhibitors, recombinant expression of therapeutically relevant proteins in plants.
Email: Lukas Mach
Website

Chris OOSTENBRINK is professor for Biomolecular Modeling and Simulation. His research interests include: Computational methods to describe the structure, function and dynamics of biomolecular systems; development of accurate classical force fields; efficient calculation of binding free energies of a series of compounds to a common macromolecular target; method development and practical applications to rationalize and predict experiments; enhanced sampling techniques to address conformational changes and protein folding problems; Effect of protein flexibility on function and behaviour.
Email: Chris Oostenbrink
Website

Clemens PETERBAUER is Senior Scientist at the Department of Food Sciences and Technology. His research focuses on enzymes from food-related microorganisms and their function and application, namely polysaccharide hydrolases, carbohydrate oxidoreductases and glycosyl transferases. Additionally he is interested in food-grade cell factories and expression systems such as lactic acid bacteria and their use in homologous and heterologous protein expression. The employed methods are enzyme engineering using rational as well as random approaches, activity screening and enzymological characterization, and construction and characterization of custom-made expression strains.
Email: Clemens Peterbauer
Website

Christina SCHÄFFER is Professor for Molecular Glycobiology at the Department of Chemistry. Her research interests include: Microbial glycobiology, understanding glycan structure-function relationship and glycan and glycoprotein biosynthesis; Bacterial cell wall composition, aiming at the identification and design of novel antimicrobial; Characterization of carbohydrate-active enzymes and their use for glycosylation engineering; S-layers, structure-function analysis of bioinspired supramolecular architectures in combination with protein self-assembly, with a special focus on glyconanobiotechnology; Oral microbiology, with a focus on biofilms (periodontitis, dental caries), virulence factors, host cell interaction, immune response profiling, and secondary metabolites from the oral microbiome; Bacterial protein glycosylation in the context of infectious diseases with possible impact on lead finding.
Email: Christina Schäffer
Website

Eva STÖGER is Professor at the Department of Applied Genetics and Cell Biology. Her research interests include: Crop biotechnology and molecular farming; recombinant production and analysis of pharmaceutically or nutritionally relevant proteins (with emphasis on monoclonal antibodies) in different plant species, including tobacco, medicago and cereals; biochemical, structural and functional characterisation of the products. A main focus involves the use of plant seeds for high-yield and stable accumulation of recombinant proteins. Several studies have been carried out to explore the deposition of endogenous and recombinant proteins in storage organelles and to utilize these intracellular compartments for the accumulation of recombinant enzymes and pharmaceutical proteins.
Email: Eva Stöger
Website

Richard STRASSER is Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Genetics and Cell Biology. His research interests include: characterization of the plant N-glycosylation pathway with focus on the biochemical characterization of glycosyltransferases and glycosidases involved in N-glycan processing; analysis of transport and trafficking of N-glycan processing enzymes in the endoplasmic reticulum and Golgi apparatus; elucidation of the biological function of oligo-mannosidic and complex N-glycans; mechanism of N-glycosylation in plants; characterization of glycan-dependent ER quality control systems in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana.
Email: Richard Strasser
Website

Michael TRAXLMAYR is head of the BOKU-module of the CD Laboratory for Next Generation CAR T Cells. His research focuses on the application of protein engineering for the generation of CAR T cells with improved controllability and tumor-specificity. Examples include the generation of novel antigen recognition domains for CARs, as well as small molecule-regulated protein switches that enable functional control of CAR T cells by administration of small molecule drugs. In addition, novel concepts for more specific targeting of tumor tissues are being developed. 
Email: Michael Traxlmayr
Website

Iain WILSON is Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry. His research interests include: Molecular biology and biochemistry of enzymes related to glycosylation and relevant glycan structures, whether from invertebrates, vertebrates, plants or protozoa; antibody and lectin binding by glycans from invertebrates, plants and protozoa; determination of ‘glycozyme’ substrate specificities and associated ‘molecular phenotypes’ using reverse genetic approaches (mutants, RNAi) and biochemical/analytical characterisation; examination of glycosylation mutants (knock-down or knock-out) for basic research (understanding of glycosylation pathways) or ‘translational’ research (optimisation of cell lines).
Email: Iain Wilson
Website