Department of General Surgery (Division of Visceral Surgery)
Position: Associate Professor
ORCID: 0000-0001-8529-1166
T +43 1 office: 40400 73744, clinical affairs: 40400 56210
michael.bergmann@meduniwien.ac.at
Colorectal Neoplasms, Hereditary Nonpolyposis; Colorectal Surgery; Influenza Vaccines; Innate Immunity; Oncolytic Virotherapy; Telomere; Tumor Markers, Biological
Our group focuses on the molecular understanding of cancer. In the area of tumor immunology we investigate the induction and the consequences of immunogenic cell death. We believe that this will lead to novel concepts in immunotherapy of cancer. We intend to learn from our patients correlating immungenic parameters of the tumor microenvironment in colorectal cancer with the course of the disease. Having an expertise in genetic engineeing of influneza virus we developed the first oncolytic influenza virus and futher intend to optimze viral vectors and its production to allow clinical use. Our focus on an RNA viruses led to a specific interest on the impact of cell death inducing receptors in viral and malignant disease. Here we lately described novel regulatory aspects in toll-like receptor 3 signalling.
Our interest in virus-cancer cell interaction also led us to the discovery that retroviral like elements such as the LINE1 retrotransposons, which comprise 17% of our genome, are involved in telomere regulation. This created a novel focus of our research on the impact of telomers and cell death.
Standard molecular biology assays including qPCR, Western, ELISA, Nothern, Southern, cell culture, FACS. Qantitative Immunohistochemistry, Genetic engineering of influenza virus, molecular virology, CRC clinical data, CRC Tumorbank