That was the Impact Award 2022
GFF NÖ invited for the first time to the networking event Impact Award 2022 on November 17 in St. Pölten.
The most convincing was synthesis chemist Walter Kuba’s presentation of his project “The perfect match - Tools for controlling molecules in living systems.”
The molecule newly developed in his dissertation and already patented belongs to the next generation of trans-cyclooctenes and outperforms the TCO investigated in the clinical phase by orders of magnitude. Therefore, it is considered a promising candidate in the development of diagnostic and therapeutic platforms in the fight against malignant diseases. The dissertation was written at the Austrian Institute of Technology in cooperation with the Vienna University of Technology. Walter Kuba will provide insights into his life and experiences as a young scientist in the APA-Science podcast “Nerds with a mission” on December 8.
Second place went to Renate Weiß of the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, who was able to positively answer the following research questions in her dissertation: “Do enzymes produced from waste materials have the capabilities to replace conventional industrial chemicals and can new materials be developed from lignin, a by-product of the paper industry, through enzymatic modification?”
The broad spectrum of funded scientific research work was further expanded with the 3rd place dissertation by Katharina Auer-Voigtländer from the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten. In her research project, she investigated arrival processes and subject positioning of migrant refugees in the European asylum system, using Austria as an example.
In the poster presentations of ongoing research projects from the 2018 and 2019 Science Calls, prizes went to Carmen Rehm, whose work traces Vibrio cholerae bacteria in Lower Austria’s bathing ponds; Christoph Preimesberger, who investigates the spontaneous combustion behavior of wood; and Kathrin Merle Bieber, who studies the wearing of traditional costume by Jews as a representation of belonging in Vienna and Lower Austria between the advent of the Sommerfrische and 1938.
Wolfgang Renner (Head of Wiener Zeitung Academy) and Leo Capari (Technology Transfer Manager at tecnet equity NÖ Technologiebeteiligungs-Invest GmbH) could be won for the jury. The event was moderated by science journalist Ruth Hutsteiner (ORF Wissenschaft).
Geneticist and chairman of the supervisory board of GFF NÖ, Markus Hengstschläger, inspired the audience with his trenchant keynote and called on the scientists to set the bar high for their research goals. Environmental biologist and award winner Renate Weiß took this call as an opportunity and made the audience and the jury sit up and take notice with her research goal of developing car tires that are environmentally compatible in the future.
