Health, Medicine & Biology
„The WWTF makes an enormously important contribution to basic research in the field of health: the curated calls for proposals really get us ahead in Vienna!“
Recent WWTF Projects
Portfolio
Understanding intestinal diseases
Inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome are chronic diseases of the gastrointestinal tract that affect 10-15% of Western society. Bacterial biofilms are crucial in the development of these diseases. Understanding such biofilms is the aim of Markus Muttenthaler’s project.
Breaking through cancer resistance
Modern cancer therapies are showing great success, but many tumors develop resistance and evade both targeted drugs and immunotherapies. The combination of genomics, artificial intelligence and synthetic biology enables the development of molecular tools that can detect therapy-resistant cancer cell stages and activate the immune system to fight cancer.
Decoding anelloviruses
Anelloviruses infect almost all people and remain in the body for life, but despite their widespread distribution, these harmless viruses have been surprisingly little researched. This is mainly due to the fact that there are no reliable laboratory models to systematically study these viruses in cell culture and understand their reproduction mechanisms. Marco Hein and Irene Görzer's research project combines modern virology with synthetic biology in order to develop new laboratory methods using patient samples and to elucidate the relationships between viral genetics and cellular interactions.
Tissue mechanics meets biology
Mechanical properties of tissues are crucial for organ function and enable the detection of diseases such as cancer, but the relationship between these physical properties and the underlying biological processes is still poorly understood. New measuring instruments are to be developed that can simultaneously record mechanical tissue properties and molecular processes with high precision. This project lead by Diana Pinheiro will provide insights into the fundamentals of tissue mechanics could lead to better diagnostic procedures and the development of artificial tissues and organs.