Hannes Stockinger honored with Karl Landsteiner-Medal

At the annual meeting of the Austrian Society for Allergology and Immunology (ÖGAI) in Graz, several members of our Center were awarded renowned prizes. Hannes Stockinger received the Karl Landsteiner-Medal for his merits for immunology, the highest immunological distinction awarded by the Austrian Society of Allergology and Immunology.

Congratulations!

Hannes Stockinger has been serving the ÖGAI in many functions: Not only that he has been hardly missing any of the annual meetings (several of which he co-organized) since the acceptance as member in 1983, he was Vice Secretary (1992-1994), Secretary General (1994-1996), President-elect (2000-2002), President (2002-2004) Past-President (2004-2006), Chairman of the Expert Committee Immunological Education and Continuing Education (2004-present). As President together with his Secretary Gerhard Zlabinger he built up a modern homepage that is still the basis of today’s ÖGAI homepage, initiated the current ÖGAI logo, the medical specializa­tion for immunology in Europe, public awareness and the contact to laypeople support groups, in particular for allergy. He is also very active in ÖGAI-associated societies: For instance, he was the Treasurer of the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS; 2006-2015), the vice-chairperson of the Gender Equality and Career Development Committee of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS), and since 2010 he has been the President of the Federation of Austrian Scientific Societies, the umbrella organization of Austrian scientific societies, whose 160 member societies comprise approximately 30,000 individual scientists. In 1985 the ÖGAI established the Thesis Prize with Hannes Stockinger and Guido Krömer as first awardees of this Prize. In 1990 he received the Pirquet-Prize and in 1991 the Karl-Landsteiner-Prize. As representative of the ÖGAI he is co-organizing the biannual TATRA Immunology Conference. As EFIS Treasurer he initiated many public awareness projects and programs to support young immunologists, for instance the foundation of the South Eastern European Immunology School (SEEIS) that was held recently the 11^th time in Pristina, Kosovo.

Hannes Stockinger is the Head of the Research Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna (2010-present) and Chairman of one of the Center’s subunit, the Institute for Hygiene and Applied Immunology (2009-present), where he is appointed as well as a full professor for molecular immunology (2004-present). Hannes Stockinger has been identifying and characterizing the structure and function of a number of surface receptors on T cells and myeloid cells by monoclonal antibodies, the latter have been distributed to the community and used by health care centers, doctors and researchers for the diagnosis and therapy of immunological diseases and leukemias for decades up to now. Therefore, he is also member of the Cluster of Differentiation (CD) Nomenclature Council. His contribution to the understanding of how GPI-anchored receptor proteins transduce signals across the plasma mem­brane were fundamental for the identification and characterization of lipid rafts, membrane devices that are now recognized to control signaling across the plasma membrane. The understanding of the function of these lipid entities in the plasma membrane is instrumental for the therapeutic usage of lipid modifying medications such as statins and omega-3-fatty-acids. Currently, he is focusing on the development of: 1) 3G nanodevices to specifically transport drugs and factors to pathologic cells in immunological diseases, 2) novel assays for the diagnosis of bacterial infections and 3) advanced imaging to analyze the dynamic of receptors and signaling molecules in the immunological synapse with the aim to obtain novel insight into the initiation and control of the immune response and thereby to identify nanostructure-markers and targets for precision medicine. During his scientific carrier he published nearly 200 scientific papers including a variety of original papers in the very top journals such as Cell, Science, Nature Methods, Nature Immunology, Science Signaling, the Journal of Experi­mental Medicine that count for more than 10,000 citations and an h-factor of more than 50.

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^{Picture (ÖGAI): Hannes Stockinger with ÖGAI Honorary President Othmar Förster}

 05.12.2019