(Vienna, 06 November 2023) Egon Ogris, Research Group Leader at the joint Max Perutz Labs of MedUni Vienna and the University of Vienna, has taken up a professorship (§99/4) in the subject field Medical Biochemistry at MedUni Vienna with effect from 1 November 2023.
Egon Ogris and his team investigate the biogenesis and regulation of protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A), a highly conserved enzyme family with tumour-suppressive properties. Various PP2A complexes composed of three subunits exist in a cell, each of which is specifically involved in the regulation of a distinct cellular process. The analysis of this complex enzyme family requires highly specific tools such as monoclonal antibodies, which the Ogris Group develops, licenses and also patents. The current model of PP2A biogenesis, which is based to a large extent on the research results of the Ogris group, represents an important prerequisite for the development of novel drugs whose goal is the reactivation of PP2A in cancer cells and whose mechanisms of action Ogris and his team investigate.
Egon Ogris imparts his knowledge to the students with enthusiasm and in the conviction that modern precision medicine and its further development is only possible through an understanding of the molecular mechanisms of cellular processes.
Egon Ogris studied medicine at the University of Vienna, worked at the Institute of Molecular Biology in the laboratory of Erhard Winterberger, received his MD in 1987, and went to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, as a Schrödinger Postdoctoral Fellow. In 1995 he started his independent research work and habilitated in biochemistry in 2000. Egon Ogris is the head of the Division of Molecular Genetics of the Center of Medical Biochemistry at the Max Perutz Labs and co-coordinator of module 5 of the Medical Curriculum.