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Diagnostics of protein content exhaled breath condensate

With each breath we exhale, thousands of molecules are expelled giving individuals a “breath-print”.

With each breath we exhale, thousands of molecules are expelled giving individuals a “breath-print”. Thanks to major breakthroughs in new technologies (electrochemical, chemiluminescence, plasmonic and others ) and the availability of mass spectrometers (MS), the field of breath analysis has made considerable advances. However, technical and statistical challenges have delayed until now the larger translation of exhaled breath technology for real-world applications.  We aim at  overcoming these challenges via the development of an efficient exhaled breath condensate (EBC) collection system based on engineered face mask design and the analysis of the protein content by RT-PCR as well as mass spectroscopy and different biosensor technologies, notable electrochemical and electrical based ones.

Diagnostics of protein content exhaled breath condensate

Research Director

  • Juan Allegretto
    I'm Juan Allegretto, originally from Argentina. I did my PhD focusing on the synthesis and characterization of Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) films, in the Soft Matter Laboratory, under the supervision of Dr. Omar Azzaroni and Dr. Matías Rafti. I also worked as a postdoc for 6 months in the same lab, integrating MOFs into solid-state nanochannels for microfluidic membranes with highly specific separation and ionic transport. I'm currently employed by DPU as Junior Researcher, being the Project lead of the ESPRIT project "Tailoring Plasmonics & MOFs: Synergy for Odorant sensing" from FWF, on which I'm working under the mentoring of Dr. Jakub Dostalek in the Biosensor Technologies group.
  • Naoto Asai Ph. D
    Naoto Asai is a full-time Junior Researcher at the LiST (International Laboratory for Life Sciences and Technology) research group at the Danube Private University. His research focuses on the development of optical biosensors for the detection of biomarkers. He joined this group to take part in a project entitled Digital Plasmon Biosensor (DIPLAB). His core research interest is to improve biosensing performance through cutting-edge technologies utilizing material science, biotechnology, and computer science. He received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Kansai University, a master's degree in Engineering, and a doctor degree's in Engineering from the Graduate School of Kansai University.
  • Dr. Hannes Dörfler
    Dr Hannes Dörfler is a chemist by training and received his PhD from the Molecular Systems Biology Department at the University of Vienna. After a three-year postdoctoral phase at the company Boehringer Ingelheim in Germany where he was working on Omics-based biomarkers, he joined DPU as a staff scientist. Hannes Dörfler has expertise in biochemistry and pharmaceutical development, and also works with multivariate statistical analysis of big data towards pattern recognition and biological interpretation.
  • Dr. Jakub Dostalek
    Optical biosensor technologie for biomarker analysis Jakub Dostalek received his PhD in 2006 from the Charles University in Prague and worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Photonics and Electronics, Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) until 2006. After his postdoctoral training and spending one year as a project leader at Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz in 2008, he moved to the Austrian Institute of Technology in Vienna in 2009, where he worked from 2015 as senior scientist until 2023. Since 2020, he serves as a lecturer at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna. In 2021, he assumed senior researcher position at the Institute of Physics, CAS, in Prague. From 2023 he is active in LiST at Donau Private University. His research interests concern combined aspects of nanophotonics and biomaterials research applied in optical sensors and biosensors, and light management in thin film optical devices. Near-field and guided wave optics, plasmonics, biointerfaces, amplification strategies in optical spectroscopy, biomolecular interaction analysis. Analytical technologies for rapid and sensitive detection of chemical and biological species relevant to medical diagnostics.
  • Roger Hasler Ph. D
    Roger Hasler, from Liechtenstein, obtained his Master in Chemistry from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich in 2016. During his Master he worked on developing colloidal nanoparticles and post-synthetic surface modifications. Then, as research assistant in the group of Prof. Maksym Kovalenko at ETH he used this nanoparticles as building blocks for thermoelectric materials. In 2017 he joined the Center for Radiopharmaceutical Sciences at the Paul Scherrer Institute and developed novel radionuclides for cancer theranostics in the field of nuclear medicine. His focus was on target development for proton irradiation, but his tasks also included chemical separations and quality assessment of the produced nuclides as well as establishing recycling procedures for enriched target materials. In October 2019, he joined the BioSensor Technologies Group at the Austrian Institute of Technology as PhD candidate in the H2020-MSCA-ITN BORGES program under the supervision of Prof. Wolfgang Knoll. His research activity was focused on the fabrication of graphene field-effect transistors as well as surface plasmon resonance spectroscopic devices and merging the two technologies into a single device for combined electrical and optical investigation of surface events in thin biointerfaces. During this time, he conducted three research secondments – in the group of Prof. Gabriel Gomila at IBEC Barcelona, in the group of Prof. Paolo Samorì at the Université de Strasbourg, and in the group of Prof. Carlo Bortolotti at the Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia. Since January 2023 he joined the Danube Private University as researcher in the Laboratory for Life Sciences and Technology (LiST) and his work focuses on the development of a responsive wound dressing.
  • Prof. Dr. Achim Walter Hassel
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  • Prof. Dr. Christoph Kleber
    Christoph Kleber (male, 49 y/o; Google Scholar h-Index:18), is Full Professor of Chemistry at DPU Krems. He received his Diploma in Physical and Theoretical Chemistry in 1999 and his PhD in the field of Analytical Chemistry in 2002 at the Technical University Vienna. He was appointed as Professor for Biotechnology at the University of Applied Sciences in Krems in 2005 and finished his habilitation in Material Science in 2009. In 2010 he was appointed as Scientific Director and CEO of Austria’s Centre of Excellence for Electrochemical Surface Technology (CEST) in Wiener Neustadt. Since 2016 he is visiting professor at the JKU Linz at the Institute of Prof. Hassel and since 2019 at the DPU. His scientific work focused on the interface between various materials and their ambient atmospheres to elucidate the mechanisms of (bio) degradation at a molecular level with respect to sensing materials. He was project leader and/or partner in 21 grants, published 58 articles. Including COMET projects he was responsible for the coordination of 44 industrial and 29 University partners in a few tens of projects with an overall budget of approximately 40. Mio. Euros in the last 10 years.
  • Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Knoll
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
  • Dr. Erich Kny
    Dr. Erich Kny obtained a PhD in Chemistry and Physics from the University of Vienna. After working as an Assistant Professor at the University of Vienna in physical Chemistry he performed a Postdoc stay at the University of Missouri, Rolla, USA in surface- and interface-science and surface analytics. When returning to Austria he decided to start a carrier in industry and joined Metallwerk Plansee in Tyrol, Austria. He worked there as a department leader for 10 years in powder metallurgy research and the application of refractory metal products in various medical and technical fields and in metallic and ceramic superconductor developments. When he left Planssee, he was the appointed overall deputy R&D leader and joined the research organisation Seibersdorf Research in lower Austria as Division head for Materials and Mechanical Engineering. Maintaining this position for 17 years he founded a new department for medical device development and a centre for surface science & electrochemistry in Wiener Neustadt as well as a centre for light metal development in Ranshofen, Upper Austria. When retiring from this position he founded his own consulting company Kemyk. He is now working as a scientific consultant for the Danube Private University in the last two years specialising in biomedical sensor development, new implant materials, and air quality management.
  • Wiktor Luczak
    Wiktor Luczak received a joint Master in Science title in Biomedical Engineering in 2020 from the Universität zu Lübeck and Technische Hochschule Lübeck in Germany. He worked at the Department of Health Management at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany and National Health Technology Assessment Agency in Warsaw, Poland. Since October 2021, he is a researcher at Danube Private University in Austria, where he takes part in the EU Project of LaserImplant. His current research interests include investigations of differently modified surfaces of implants, 3D-printed tooth crowns and inner tooth topography with Atomic Force Microscopy.
  • Dipl.-Ing. Vivian Madi
    Vivien Madi received her master's degree from the Vienna University of Technology in Chemistry and Technology of Materials. Her extensive training in materials chemistry and interest in pioneering applied research led her to join the research group led by Dr. Johannes Bintinger, working on conductive polymer-based sensors in order to develop an electronic nose system. Her research focus is on the optimization of conductive sensor materials with respect to their physical properties. To this end, she also continuously tests the sensor materials in a real-life environment to fine-tune the sensor responses and thus manufacture a reproducible odor sensor. She is active at the LiST at Danube Private University since 2023. She is highly involved in the Hypelignum-Project, which gives her the opportunity to optimize the sensor materials also in terms of sustainability, and to envision new environmentally friendly sensor designs. Her other research interests are doping material integration into organic semiconductor surfaces and the functionalization of graphene surfaces to achieve a selective sensor response.
  • Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Winfried Neuhaus
    Winfried Neuhaus is one out of six Principal Scientists at the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH and head of the group Biological Barriers at the Competence Unit Molecular Diagnostics. He studied food- and biotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna (Austria) and received his PhD from the University of Vienna (Pharmaceutical Sciences). Before he joined the AIT, he worked at the University Hospital Würzburg (Germany) as PI for six years and was granted his habilitation in Molecular Medicine. In addition, he was employed at the Medical University Vienna (Institute of Medical Genetics, 2015-2016) and the University of Vienna (Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, 2013-2016). Before he started in Würzburg in 2010, he was leader of the “Preclinical and Blood-Brain Barrier Research Group” in the pharmaceutical industry company PharmaCon GmbH for two years. In total, Winfried Neuhaus has over 20 years expertise in the biological barriers research field especially for in vitro models and in vitro/in vivo translatability in health and disease. He has supervised over 25 master theses and 10 doctoral theses. He is author of >60 publications in peer-reviewed journals, most of them with first or corresponding authorships, five book chapters, one book and > 100 abstracts. He is engaged as reviewer as well as editor for several scientific journals, he is member of several advisory boards, the current president of the European Society for Alternatives to Animal Testing (EUSAAT), coordinator of the 3Rs centre network EU3Rnet and recently appointed Professor for 3Rs and New Approach Methodologies at DPU Krems, Austria. Several topics in the model development are related to the 3Rs principles in order to improve biomedical science in general and are benchmarked against clinical human data and parameters. We use the models for e.g.: · Understanding cross-talk between barrier forming cells and their microenvironment · Understanding disease mechanisms · Understanding species differences · Identification and validation of biomarkers · Assessment of therapeutic approaches · Drug transport and effect studies · Assessment of the influence of the exposome and related toxicity Publications: PubMed-NCBI
  • Dipl.-Ing. Bernhard Pichler
    Bernhard Pichler graduated his master’s in biotechnology in 2020 from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna. Next to his studies, he built a prototype for a robot that autonomously performs chemical syntheses under the supervision of Univ. Prof. Dr. Erik Reimhult and Dr. Peter van Oostrum, before conducting a master thesis about flow and protein transport characteristics of polymer-functionalized nanopores. From March 2020 to January 2023, he was employed as a Junior Scientist in the BioSensor Technologies group (BST) at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), working on novel ways of smell sensing with a special focus on data engineering, data science and automation work. Since January 2023 he is active at the LiST at the Donau Private University as a Junior Researcher, continuing his work in the same field. At the LiST he is part of a team supervised by Dr. Ciril Reiner-Rozman, which focuses on the fabrication of real-time read-out, Internet-of-Things compatible, printable electronic smell sensors and the underlying artificial intelligence algorithms. The technology in development is part of several LiST research projects and an upcoming start-up initiative.
  • Dr. Ciril Reiner-Rozman
    Smart e-Nose system based on conductive polymers for smell identification Ciril Reiner-Rozman received his PhD in 2016 from the Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germarny and worked as a Post-Doc at the Austrian Institute of Technology until 2021. The scientific focus during the PhD and beyond were the development of graphene-based field-effect transistor biosensors. Since 2020, he serves as a lecturer at the Danube Private University in Krems and also worked closely together with the scientific group of Dr. Johannes Bintinger on conductive polymer sensors composites for the development of an electronic Nose system. His research focus now is the development and integration of machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms for the evaluation and prognosis of Smell patterns. Since 2023 he is active at the LiST at Donau Private University. His research interests also include sensor devices based on multivariable signal transduction, hierarchical database design for smell classification, aspects of dopant material integration for conductive transduction surfaces, functionalization of graphene surfaces for gas phase sensing and membrane materials for buffering of environmental conditions. He and his team are involved in the preparation of a start-up initiative, fabricating real-time read-out, Internet-of-Things compatible, printable electronic smell sensors and the underlying artificial intelligence algorithms.
  • Katharina Schmidt Ph. D
    Katharina is an ambitious PhD student with the aim to develop plasmonic biosensors to observe well-seperated single molecules for ultrasensitiv cancer biomarker detection at the Danube Private University in the LiST Laboratory under the supervision of Dr. Jakub Dostalek. She achieved her individual Master's degree in Nanobioscience at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, as well as her Bachelor in Food- and Biotechnology.
  • Prof. Sabine Szunerits
    From Diagnostics to Nanomedicine Sabine Szunerits, an Austrian educated native, received her PhD at the University of London in 1998 in the field of Electrochemistry. She completed research fellowships in the research group of Pr. Christian Amatore at ENS Paris, and Pr. David Walt at Tufts University, Boston, USA) before being appointed Professor at INPGrenoble (ranking among the best French Engineering Schools for its research) in 2004. She joined the University of Lille, notably the Institute of Electronics, Microelectronics and nanotechnology (IEMN), in 2009 as Full Professor in Chemistry and is since 2022 scientifically engaged as Head of the LiST laboratory on Diagnostics and Life Science related aspects. Dr. Szunerits’s research is very interdisciplinary and has made her the mentor of a large variety of students coming to her laboratory from different places. It might be her additional interest in social science, with obtained MA from the Open University of London, what makes her sensitive and open to consider diversity and inclusion in research. Currently she is co-Editor-of-Chief of the new RSC Open Access Journal Sensors & Diagnostic (https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/about-journals/sensors-diagnostics/) and engaged as one of the editors of Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry (https://www.springer.com/journal/216 ) She is also promoting ACS Sensors, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces and ACS Omega, by being one the Editorial Advisory Board Members. Her primary research focus at DPU-LiST are on the design of ultra-sensitive 2D materials based diagnostics devices based on electrochemical and field effect transistor concepts for the sensing of disease biomakers in exhaled breath condensate.
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