(Vienna, 18 January 2021) Thomas Bauer, researcher at the Institute of Cancer Research of MedUni Vienna and member of the Comprehensive Cancer Center (CCC) of MedUni Vienna and Vienna General Hospital has been awarded the 2020 Science Prize by the Austrian Society of Dermatology and Venerology. The expert association is awarding him this prize for his research into the mechanisms that lead to severe adverse skin reactions following targeted cancer treatment. The work focuses on the EGF receptor and the signalling pathways influenced by it. The paper was published in the leading journal "Science Translational Medicine " at the end of 2019 and earned Bauer the title of MedUni Vienna's "Researcher of the Month" in November 2020.
In the prize-winning publication entitled: "Hair Eruption and Commensal Skin Microbiota Aggravate Adverse Events of anti-EGFR Therapy", Bauer not only deciphered the mechanisms that lead to severe adverse skin reactions following blockade of the EGF receptor but also developed an innovative treatment approach that was successfully tested in a preclinical model.
Details of the paper can be found on the CCC website and MedUni Vienna's website.
About Thomas Bauer
Thomas Bauer was born in Vienna in 1979, completed his secondary education at the Realgymnasium in Waidhofen an der Thaya in 1997 and then studied microbiology at the University of Vienna with an Erasmus placement at the University of Oulu in Finland. During the course of the international PhD programme "Inflammation and Immunity" at MedUni Vienna's Institute of Immunology, his scientific focus shifted to inflammatory responses, especially in the skin. A research placement at Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California (USA) in the group led by Greg Lemke resulted in a high-ranking publication, which won the Austrian Society for Allergology and Immunology's (ÖGAI) Karl Landsteiner Prize, and a first research proposal (Austrian Science Fund, FWF). Following a brief postdoc placement at the Institute of Immunology at MedUni Graz, he started as project leader/postdoc at MedUni Vienna’s Institute of Cancer Research in the group led by Univ.- Maria Sibilia, where he also wrote the present study in collaboration with Jörg Klufa. These findings are now being developed further in the context of an international DACH project. Bauer was named MedUni Vienna's „Researcher of the Month” in November 2020.