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"For Women in Science" scholarship for young researchers of MedUni Vienna

Kathrin Spettel (4. from left) and Kristina Breitenecker (3. from right)

(Vienna 30 November 2022) In the context of "For Women in Science" scholarship programme, four scientists received awards for their research contributions. Two of the awards, each worth 25,000 Euros, went to biomedical analysts Kristina Breitenecker and Kathrin Spettel from MedUni Vienna.

Kristina Breitenecker (born 1995 in Vienna) from the Centre for Cancer Research at the Medical University of Vienna is being honoured for her study on the effects of the cell receptor "Axl" on the development and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). She also wants to find out whether "Axl" could be a potential marker for the effectiveness of immunotherapies against HCC.

Kathrin Spettel (born 1988 in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg) from the Department of Clinical Microbiology at MedUni Vienna's Clinical Institute of Laboratory Medicine was awarded the scholarship for her research into molecular resistance mechanisms in fungal infections by using next generation sequencing. It is her aim to determine which antimycotic substances can be used for therapy.

Two other scholarships were awarded to Melanie Kobelius from MedUni Graz for research on the isolation and characterisation of various lipid stores in human intestinal cells and to Larissa Traxler from the University of Innsbruck for her studies on the impact of cellular sugar metabolism on nerve cells in Alzheimer's patients.

"For Women in Science" scholarships have been awarded annually since 2007 by the cosmetics company L’Oréal together with the Austrian UNESCO Commission and the Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) and are financially supported by the Ministry of Education. They are directed toward female doctoral students and post-docs in natural sciences, medicine and mathematics. The award is intended to help promising female talents, who are also role models for girls and women with scientific ambitions, to start a scientific career and to demonstrate the urgency of utilising the potential of female scientists, as was said at the award ceremony.

About the persons
Kristina Breitenecker completed her Master's degree in Biomedical Analytics at the University of Applied Sciences Campus Vienna in 2018. Since 2019, she is a PhD student at the Medical University of Vienna at the Centre for Cancer Research in the team of Wolfgang Mikulits. She studies how tumour cell intrinsic as well as extrinsic expression of the receptor tyrosine kinase Axl affects the development and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Kathrin Spettel completed her Master's degree in Biomedical Analytics at the University of Applied Sciences Campus Vienna and is a PhD student at the Medical University of Vienna in the Department of Clinical Microbiology under the supervision of Prof. Birgit Willinger. As part of her PhD thesis, she is researching the molecular resistance mechanisms of fungi, using new sequencing technologies.