Biochemical Immunotoxicology Group
Meet the group
Johanna M. Gostner. Team Leader
Johanna Gostner is Associate Professor of Biochemical Toxicology and European Registered Toxicologist at the Institute of Medical Biochemistry of the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria.
She leads the Biochemical Immunotoxicology Group, where her research focuses on immune activation and immunometabolism, applying in vitro approaches, animal models, and clinical as well as epidemiological studies. Her team develops innovative exposure platforms to assess the toxicology and bioactivity of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including advanced cell models for long-term, low-dose exposure studies. They recently launched ExonSurfer, a user-friendly primer design tool optimized for transcript-specific assays, and, in collaboration with Associate Professor Hubert Hackl, developed DoseRider, a tool for analyzing dose–response data from chemical, drug, and environmental exposure experiments involving varying doses.
Dr. Gostner completed her PhD at the Tyrolean Cancer Research Institute, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship and habilitation in Biochemistry at the Medical University of Innsbruck. She broadened her training at Imperial College London, supported by the prestigious FWF Hertha-Firnberg fellowship.
She has received the Blair–Curtius–Pfleiderer–Wachter Award for pteridine research and the ISTRY Young Investigator Award for her work on immunomodulation via tryptophan metabolism.
Her overarching research goal is to advance how environmental impacts on human immune function are assessed.
Michael Zwerger. PostDoc
Michael is a Postdoctoral Scientist in the Institute of Medical Biochemistry at the Medical University of Innsbruck (MUI). He obtained his BSc, Mag pharm. as well as PhD at the Institute of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacognosy at the University of Innsbruck. His expertise on the one hand side focusses on target metabolite profiling with LC-MS/MS and on the other on isolating and analyzing bioactive compounds using advanced separation techniques like supercritical fluid chromatography and centrifugal partition chromatography. His research is currently dedicated to investigating mycosporine-like amino acids in the UVISION project
Lucia Parráková. PhD Student.
Lucia is a PhD student at the Medical University of Innsbruck under the supervision of Johanna M. Gostner. Her research focuses on cellular responses to toxic exposures, including volatile organic compounds, and utilizes multi‑omics methods to investigate immunotoxicological mechanism
Pablo Monfort-Lanzas. PhD Student.
Aldrien Ryan Naces Reynaldo. PhD Student.
Aldrien is a PhD student in the MYCOS program at the Medical University of Innsbruck, supervised by Johanna Gostner. His research investigates the immunomodulatory effects of antimicrobial and antifungal compounds, focusing on dose‑dependent impacts on cytokine secretion, tryptophan metabolites, gene/protein expression, and synergistic or antagonistic responses
Elisabeth Kindler-Maly. MTF
Elisabeth has long-term experience in cell culture. She is our cell culture and laboratory manager.
Alexander Fabrichnyy. (TA)
Alexander is a technical assistant in Johanna Gostner’s lab, with a background in biomedical sciences and prior experience in molecular and cellular biology.
Maria Pfurtscheller. (TA)
Students
Dorina Kernbichler – Master’s student
Daniel Grüner – Diploma student
Büsra Akyol –Master’s student