IRC Steering Board

Andreas Bergthaler trained as a veterinarian at the University of Veterinary Medicine​ in Vienna. Following doctoral and postdoctoral work with Dr. Hans Hengartner and Nobel laureate Dr. Rolf Zinkernagel at the University of Zurich, with Dr. Daniel Pinschewer at the University of Geneva, Switzerland and with Dr. Alan Aderem at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, US, he was group leader at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences from 2011-2021. Since 2022, he is Professor of Molecular Immunology and Head of the Institute of Hygiene and Applied Immunology at the Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna in Austria. He is also Adjunct Principal Investigator at CeMM. Andreas is co-founder of the clinical-stage immunotherapy company Hookipa Pharma.

Michael Bonelli, MD, is Professor of Experimental Rheumatology at the Medical University of Vienna and Head of the Clinical and Translational Science Unit. 
His work combines mechanistic immunology with clinical and translational research to improve patient stratification, identify biomarkers of disease and treatment response, and develop novel therapeutic strategies. He has particular expertise in epigenetic reprogramming, T-cell biology, autoimmunity and structural immunity. 
Michael Bonelli is the director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Applied Immunotherapies (LBI-AIM), where he aims to develop novel epigenetic and cell based therapies to reprogram or reset the immune system. His research spans rheumatic and other immune-mediated diseases and is strongly focused on translating molecular insights into clinically actionable, personalized therapies.

After studying Medicine at the University of Genoa/Italy, Marta Rizzi completed her PhD in Clinical and Experimental Immunology in Genoa/Italy and San Diego/California in 2004. In 2007, she completed her residency training in Allergology and Clinical Immunology. Since 2006, she has been conducting research at the University Medical Center Freiburg - initially as a postdoctoral fellow, and later as head of a research group since 2014. In 2014, she was awarded the prestigious Margarete von Wrangell fellowship.
Since 2022 she is Professor of Clinical and Experimental Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna.
She has been awarded the prestigious Heisenberg Professorship of the German Research foundation (DFG) and since 2023 she is also Professor for Experimental and Translational Rheumatology (Heisenberg) at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Freiburg.

Philipp studied Molecular Biology at the University of Vienna and received his PhD in Immunology from the MedUni Vienna. He then moved to the US to join Steve Galli’s lab at Stanford University as PostDoc to continue and extend his work on mast cells and type 2 immunity. Philipp then returned to Austria to join Sylvia Knapp at CeMM to study infectious diseases. Today, he is an AP Professor and independent group leader at the Dept. of Medicine I of the MedUni Vienna. His team investigates biological functions of type 2 granulocytes and the interplay between infections and type 2 immunity with the aim to better understand the long-term consequences of inflammation for the development of future unrelated immune responses. 

Johanna Strobl is a board-certified dermato-venerologist and Principal investigator at the Depatment of Dermatology, Medical University of Vienna, and Associate Researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai University (New York, United States). She obtained her MD and PhD (Immunology) from the Medical University of Vienna, followed by post-doctoral research experience at the Wellcome Sanger Institute (Cambridge, UK). She is board member of the Austrian Society for Allergology and Immunology (ÖGAI), founding member of the young European Federation of Immunological Societies (yEFIS) and was the first president of the Next Generation Immunologists (Austria). Her work focuses on translational research in inflammatory skin diseases and tick-borne skin infections.

Dimitris Tsiantoulas obtained his PhD degree from the Medical University of Vienna (Austria) in 2015, studying the functions of B cells and antibodies in atherosclerosis in Prof. Christoph Binder’s lab. He continued his training in immunity and atherosclerosis as a British Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Ziad Mallat’s lab at the University of Cambridge. He is currently an Assoc. Prof. of Cardiovascular Immunology and a research group leader at the Medical University of Vienna. Furthermore, Dimitris has been awarded an ERC starting grant and is a co-founder of the spin-off Aprilis pharmaceuticals.