Martha Eibl was one of the leading immunologists in Austria. In her scientific work, she specialised in immune deficiency diseases. Her focal points included clinical immunology, primary and secondary immunodeficiency as well as disorders of immune regulation. Martha Eibl passed away at the age of 92 on January 30, 2023.
Born in Székesfehérvár, Hungary in 1931, Martha Eibl obtained her doctorate at the medical faculty of the University of Vienna before taking up a postdoctoral fellowship at New York University Medical School. From 1960 to 1970, she worked at the II Medical University Hospital in Vienna, where she completed her training as a specialist in internal medicine in 1965. Subsequently, she joined the Institute of Immunology as an assistant physician (where she later became a senior physician) and travelled to several children's hospitals as a consultant in order to develop therapies against immune diseases together with the respective primary physicians. In 1980, she was awarded the working title of Ao. Professor at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna by Federal President Rudolf Kirchschläger. From 1966, she headed immunological and clinical immunological research at the pharmaceutical company Immuno AG for three decades. Since 1986, Martha Eibl managed the Immunological Day Clinic in Vienna.
Throughout the years, Martha Eibl received many awards, among those the Austrian Cross of Honour first class for Science and Art, the Red Lily of Florence for Science and Humanity or the Medal of Honour of Masaryk University Brünn.
Until the mid-1990s, she worked on the application of immunoglobulins and was a member of the relevant European Expert Committee for many years. Until the end of the 1990s, she contributed significantly to the AIDS vaccine research with the aim of curbing the spread of this infection.
Retirement was a foreign word for Martha Eibl, as she explained at an event organised by the Alumni Club on Medical University of Vienna Day 2020. The immunologist found the daily work with other researchers, some of them at the age of her grandchildren, enriching. She also enjoyed contributing her many years of specialist knowledge to the treatment of patients with rare and severe diseases.