(Vienna/Schladming, 22 October 2025) At this year's AustroTransplant Congress 2025, outstanding young scientists from MedUni Vienna were honoured for their special contributions to transplant medicine. The awards went to David Pereyra, Jule Dingfelder, Laurin Rauter and Sophia Alemanno.
The Austrotransplant Start Grant, worth €20,000, went to David Pereyra from the Clinical Division of Transplantation at the Department of General Surgery for further research into biomarkers for viability testing in the context of machine perfusion prior to liver transplantation. Sophia Alemanno from the Department of Thoracic Surgery also received the Austrotransplant Start Grant for her research project. Her project is investigating the immunomodulatory effects of extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) in lung transplantation and is conducting her research as part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network "exTra" under the direction of Alberto Benazzo. Sophia Alemanno's poster presentation, which dealt with methodological aspects of the same project, also received the Astellas Poster Award.
With the Start Grant, Austrotransplant supports innovative research projects by young scientists who are breaking new ground in transplantation research.
The Austrotransplant Clinical Science Award 2025 was presented to Jule Dingfelder (Clinical Division of Transplantation) for her outstanding work published in 2025 in the renowned journal Liver Transplantation: "Validation of mitochondrial FMN as a predictor for early allograft dysfunction and patient survival measured during hypothermic oxygenated perfusion."
Laurin Rauter (Clinical Division of Transplantation) was honoured with the AustroTransplant Biotest Award 2025. The award recognises outstanding achievements in the field of experimental and biomedical research in the context of organ transplantation. Laurin Rauter's work, "Endothelial glycocalyx damage marker syndecan-1 during hypothermic oxygenated machine perfusion of donor grafts facilitates prediction of early allograft dysfunction after liver transplantation," was published in HBSN in 2025.
"The award winners are exemplary representatives of the next generation of researchers at the Medical University of Vienna, whose work is making a decisive contribution to shaping the future of transplantation medicine in Austria and Europe. It is particularly important to me to promote young talent both clinically and scientifically," said Georg Györi, who is currently interim head of the Clinical Division of Transplantation.
Austrotransplant is the central scientific platform for transplant medicine in Austria and brings together experts from the fields of surgery, internal medicine, intensive care medicine, immunology and basic research, as well as psychology and nursing.
The annual congress serves as a forum for interdisciplinary exchange and promotes scientific networking in the field of organ transplantation and organ donation. This year, it took place from 15 to 17 October in Schladming.