Viverita Therapeutics Inc. and its Austrian subsidiary Viverita Discovery Flexco are new companies dedicated to develop precision medicine for oncology. We leverage proprietary technology to embrace the complexity and heterogeneity of cancer to develop the next generation of precision therapy.As co-founder of Viverita Therapeutics I lead it's daughter Viverita Discovery located at the Vienna Biocenter.

The lab activities converge on the goal of understanding and manipulating how cells maintain or change cell identity in development, disease, and therapy. We pioneer development of several genome wide genetic tools for functional annotation of genomes, such as shRNA screens (Cheloufi et al., Nature 2015), haploid genetics (Elling et al., CSC 2011, Elling et al., Nature 2017), a single cell-based CRISPR screening (CRISPR-UMI, Michlits et al. Nature Methods 2017), Cre-inducible sgRNA expression for conditional editing (CRISPR-Switch, Chylinski et al., Nature Comm. 2019), and superior sgRNA prediction tools (VBC-score, Michlits et al., Nature Methods, 2020).Our vision is to understand how cells enable identity change in development and regeneration, yet prevent transformation to happen in disease. We further aim to understand how cell type and transformation interact in these processes. CAF1, SUMOylation (Cheloufi et al., Nature 2015) and Men1 (Michlits et al., Nature Methods, 2017) were identified as novel potent roadblocks of lineage conversion. In a recent study we describe two distinct mechanistic paths within one cell identity transition, yet induced by two different, closely related transcription factors (Vainorius et al., in press).Development of precision cancer therapy suffers from a critical shortage of therapeutic targets. Based on the notion, that genetic dependencies in cell culture are not paralleled in vivo, we developed a novel CRISPR screening paradigm suitable for in vivo screens (unpublished). This new and patented concept generates internal controls in genetic screening thereby controlling for any noise and heterogeneity in the system. The lab now focusses on leveraging this proprietary method to systematically map out genetic dependencies of cancer in vivo. We map gene function both in transplant models as well as in murine tissue such as the liver with the aim of identifying cancer-specific genetic vulnerabilities.

The SARSeq pipeline was the backbone of the national SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance program in Austria. Under my supervision, the SARSeq team was sequencing ~80% of all analyzed samples within the random surveillance pipeline in a research contract with the Ministry of Health and AGES. Thereby Austria was the 3rd best surveilled country in the world. The SARSeq technology for detection of SARS-CoV2 and other viruses in a multiplexed high throughput platform was published recently (Nature Comm. 2021), a preprint of the SARSeq sequencing platform for mutational surveillance in Austria was released in MedRxiv.In my role executing the national SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance in Austria I informed and advised national decision makers of current epidemic developments. This included e.g. regular detailed briefings of the Omicron outbreak in Africa and Europe to support national preparation efforts. Further, I acted as a WHO expert and communicated national results and international evaluations towards WHO, ECDC, and country representatives. In addition, I served on several boards aiming to integrate scientific data with political decisions and public communication (e.g. Future Operations and Public Health Board, advisor to the therapeutics board of the “Oberster Sanitätsrat”, member of the variant management plan expert panel, various science communication formats). Moreover, I was a much sought-after expert in the media to discuss aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic with a focus on emerging variants. As such I had numerous appearances in most major Austrian TV news formats (Zib1, Zib2, Zib Nacht, Puls4, Puls24, …), several podium discussions, radio interviews, as well as thousands of appearances in national and international print media formats.

Postdoctoral Fellow with Dr. Josef Penninger IMBA | Study design, planning, and execution of various research projects | Grant- and manuscript writing |Student supervision | industry collaborations;Genome wide Drosophila screen on hematopoiesis | Study of various cancer models in mice | Establishment of haploid embryonic stem cells | Development of haploid ES cells as tool for high throughput genetics | Screening assay development | Screens for resistance mutations against virus, toxins, and chemotherapy | Development of custom next generation sequencing and bioinformatic pipelines;