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.
Lucia Parráková. PostDoc
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
Nadine Linherr. PhD Student.
Nadine is a PhD student at the Medical University of Innsbruck under the supervision of Johanna Gostner. She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Chemistry with a focus on Biochemistry from the University of Innsbruck, where her Master’s thesis focused on the enrichment of stress granules in cancer cells for metabolic profiling.
Her research investigates the modulation of immunometabolic pathways by environmental chemicals prioritized within the PARC project. She focuses on the impact of selected compounds on tryptophan metabolism and AhR-mediated signaling, combining analytical and cell biological approaches to better understand their effects on immune function.
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)
Alumni
Michael Zwerger –PostDoc
Cornelia Karg – PostDoc
Büsra Akyol –Master’s student
Dorina Kernbichler – Master’s student
Daniel Grüner – Diploma student