Message from the Chair

It is my privilege to introduce the Institute of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry from the Center of Molecular Medicine at the Medical University of Graz. Our success clearly builds on the outstanding core of faculty and staff that are joined by very talented research fellows and students who all share our mission of conducting great research and teaching. We share the excitement on the recent and ongoing progresses in the disciplines of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and maintain our duty in the exploration of the molecular basis of diseases. From our strong roots in lipid research, our institute has grown to a highly productive location for successful research activities in the field of lipid signaling and metabolism, signal transduction, genetic epidemiology, and, Ca2+ signaling and function. Our scientific efforts are complemented with sophisticated high-end experimental tools that encompass e.g. DNA sequencing, proteomics (Maldi-Tof), high-resolution laser microscopy and electrophysiology.

Our institute is embedded in the very interactive and outstanding local environment of lipid signaling and metabolism, signal transduction and Ca2+ signaling. We believe to serve our mission best by close collaboration with other great research groups and institutions that share our commitment to scientific quality. In view of international competitiveness and in times of cutting budgets and financial ties, we stand for our responsibility to earn research grants to accomplish our research activities and seek to publish our results in internationally recognized journals. We are proud on nine research grants from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), three projects within the FWF-supported program project grant (SFB) LipoTox, three from the Austrian National Bank (ÖNB) and multiple international collaborations within e.g. NIH projects, EU networks or with the industry. Being at the Medical University of Graz, we join forces with our colleagues at the clinics to bridge basic research with clinical sciences.

Besides our strong local scientific boundaries, we enjoy international collaboration and are happy to host currently researchers from more than 15 nations worldwide. Many of them are students in our PhD program Molecular Medicine, a program that is aimed to provide very talented young scientists with an excellent scientific education. In addition to this postgraduate program, we are engaged in the educational courses of the medical school and organize several Special Study Models in order to provide in-depth education in the evolving disciplines of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in Medicine. We believe that a great education of our students warrants their and our own future success and, thus, the promotion of our young colleagues is our special focus. Accordingly, we take care on the important matters of diversity and gender mainstream and support projects within the scope of women’s promotion. Noteworthy, our team also takes an eye on the emerging ecological and ethical aspects in our routine and daily research work. We are inspired that all our efforts to work for progress in medicine and science essentially need to be complemented with ecological and ethical issues to ensure sustainability of our activities.

Thank you for visiting our website. We hope that you find it informative and we warmly invite you to further explore our site and to learn more on our great team, the individual scientists, our research projects and funding, and available resources we gladly offer for collaborations with us. As a student you may find our teaching platform useful where you can find all kinds of learning aids and interesting information on our existing courses.

Please feel free to contact me, members of the faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows, or students if you are interested in further information.
Best regards,
Wolfgang F. Graier