My major teaching areas are bachelor courses for Molecular Biology (courses IA and IIIA). In the Molecular Biology Course IA the focus is on teaching basic methods used in Microbiology (e.g. growth, cultivation, identification) as well as in Genetics (e.g. mutagenesis, conjugation and transformation). In the more advanced IIIA course, current research topics are used for practical implementation of methods used in Molecular Microbiology. A complementary seminar deepens the knowledge on the methods used in the laboratory course.
The number of human bacterial pathogens showing increased resistance towards clinically used antibiotics is steadily increasing, posing major threats on health care. Understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying antibiotic resistance is thus instrumental to cope with these developments. One regulatory mechanism impacting antibiotic resistance is carbon catabolite repression (CCR). In the human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the regulatory proteins involved in CCR are the RNA chaperone Hfq and the carbon catabolite regulator protein Crc as well as the regulatory RNA CrcZ. Harnessing CrcZ as a major regulator of Hfq-Crc mediated regulation has been shown to modulate the susceptibility of P. aeruginosa to several different antibiotics.
Senior lecturer and scientist at the Department of Microbiology, Immunobiology and Genetics at the University of Vienna (since 2014). Master degree (2001) and Ph.D. degree (2004) in Biochemistry from the University of Vienna; Erwin-Schrödinger Fellowship (FWF) at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland (2007-2009); Hertha Firnberg Fellowship (FWF) (2010-2012); Univie teaching award (2016).