Congratulations to Johanna Strobl, a postdoc in the group of CeMM Adjunct Principal Investigator Georg Stary at the Medical University of Vienna, for receiving the Karl Landsteiner Prize in basic immunological research in 2023!

Every year, the Austrian Society for Allergology and Immunology (ÖGAI) and the Karl Landsteiner and Eisler-Terramare Private Memorial Foundation (Bio&Bio) present this award in honor of the significant contributions of Karl Landsteiner, an Austrian immunologist and pathologist known for discovering blood groups. The prize, endowed with 4,000 €, recognizes outstanding publications in the field of basic immunological research. Eligible publications must have been published within the last two years and predominantly conducted at an Austrian institution. This year, the award ceremony took place on 15 September 2023, during the ÖGAI Annual Meeting in Linz (14-16 September 2023).

The prize acknowledges Johanna's exceptional research work, including her publication in the renowned Journal of Clinical Investigation (J Clin Invest. 2022 Nov 1;132(21):e161188. doi: 10.1172/JCI161188), which, for the first time, demonstrates how tick saliva can weaken the skin's defense function, which increases the risk of contracting diseases such as tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) or Lyme disease. Prior to this study, scientists had not fully understood why ticks are such dangerous disease vectors.