My journey so far...
No red thread...
Born in Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol, Austria, during the time when we had the first Winter Olympic Games. I received my first skiing lesson at the age of 3 and the first guitar lesson from my grandfather at the age of 5. Music became a passion and I played in several rock bands. A second passion was competitive sports: fencing, soccer and athletics.
At the age of 18, I moved to Vienna determined to study a topic related to sports that interested me deeply: the science of human nutrition. At that time, the University of Vienna did not have an adequate Master’s curriculum in that subject. Together with a few other students, I lobbied a number of faculty in the departments of Medicine, Biochemistry, and Biology to support the design and implementation of adequate coursework.
Overcoming much resistance from the Unversity bureaucracy, we finally succeeded to get the OK from the Dean for our design of a prototype ”studium irregulare“, a Master level curriculum that integrated a number of existing courses across several disciplines. The year that I graduated with a Masters in Science degree, our new curriculum received formal recognition as a regular Master’s course. By then, we had already 50 enrolled students annually and constructions had begun for a dedicated institute for human nutrition (which we also helped design). I learned a lot about organizational politics during these years...
Even before graduation, I had developed a passion for experimental research. Generous faculty let me spend time in their labs. After several publications and conference presentations I received an invitation from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, USA, to do a Ph.D. in molecular biology. Three years later, I graduated and returned to Vienna to accept a position as Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cancer Research.
