Our Members
Univ.Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Peter Ertl
Principal Investigator
Prof. Ertl holds a Master’s degree in Food Sciences and Biotechnology from the University of Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Waterloo, Canada, and received his postdoctoral training as a biophysicist at the Department of Chemistry of the University of California at Berkeley (US). In 2003 Dr. Ertl co-founded a biotech start-up company (RapidLabs Inc.), where he served a number of years as Director of Product Development in Kitchener (Canada), developing benchtop-sized microbial analyzers. Following his return to Austria in 2006, Dr. Ertl initially worked as Senior Scientist in the Biosensor Technology unit at the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT). During his tenure at AIT, Dr. Ertl was also granted a Fulbright Visiting Scholarship at UC Berkeley (2012) and conducted visiting scientist positions at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (2013) and the Medical Center of the University of California at San Francisco (2014) and received his habilitation (venia docendi) in Nanobiotechnology at the University of Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna Austria. In 2016, he was appointed full Professor of Lab-on-a-Chip Systems for Bioscience Technologies at the Faculty of Technical Chemistry of the Vienna University of Technology (TUW) and held in 2019 a visiting researcher position at the Department of Bioengineering of the Imperial College London, UK. His research focuses on developing advanced in vitro diagnostic microsystems, lab-on-a-chip technologies, and organ-on-a-chip systems. Dr. Ertl is also founder and speaker of the Austrian Microfluidic Initiative, Editor-in-Chief of the open-access journal Organs-on-a-Chip and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of SAICO Biosystems KG as well as Co-founder of Pregnerate GmbH.
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Dipl.-Ing. Martin Fraunelob PhD
Senior Scientist
Martin is a specialist in biomedical engineering, particularly in areas such as 3D cell culture, biomaterial synthesis, and microphysiological systems. With a PhD in transdisciplinary Life Science from Hokkaido University, his research on human cancer stem cells and hydrogels earned him recognition. After his doctoral studies, Martin pursued postdoctoral research at the Institute Pasteur in Paris, focusing on biomaterials and microfluidics for animal-free drug testing.
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Dipl.-Ing. Silvia Schobesberger
PhD Student
Silvia obtained her master’s degree in Technical Chemistry at the Vienna University of Technology, focusing on biotechnology and bioanalytics during her master's program. She joined the CellChip Group for her master thesis, developing a joint-on-a-chip model for rheumatoid arthritis. Currently, she is working on her PhD degree in the field of bioassay development, biosensor technologies, and point-of-care systems and as project team member collaborating with industrial partners.
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Florian Selinger MSc.
PhD Student
Florian obtained his BSc at IMC Krems in the study program Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology. For his MSc, he studied Tissue engineering and Regenerative Medicine at FH Technikum in Vienna. He started working at the CellChip Group for his Master's Thesis and is now focussing on microfluidic spheroid microarrays systems and diagnostic sensing applications.
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Dr. Mario Rothbauer MSc.
Project Assistant
Mario studied Tissue Engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Technikum Wien in 2010 and completed his PhD in Biotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna in 2015. As a Post-Doc at the CellChip Group, he developed lab- and organ-on-a-chip systems with integrated sensors for drug- and nanomaterial research. Currently, he is working on microphysiological systems for musculoskeletal diseases at the Karl Chiari Lab for Orthopedic Biology at the Medical University of Vienna.
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Dipl.-Ing. Konstanze Brandauer
PhD Student
Konstanze completed her master's degree in Biotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences of Vienna in 2021. During her PhD at the CellChip Group, she is developing a microfluidic system for the in vitro simulation of the intestine epithelium and enteric nervous system to study α-synuclein propagation in Parkinson's disease. Her expertise covers 2D- and 3D cell culture techniques, microfluidics as well as stem cell differentiation
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Dipl.-Ing. Sarah Spitz
PhD Student
Sarah focuses on the development of a multi-sensor integrated organ-on-a-chip platform for studying neurodevelopment alterations in a personalized Parkinson’s model. After her master’s in Biotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, she expanded her expertise as a visiting scientist at the University of Luxembourg and Massachusetts Institute of Technology during her PhD at the Vienna University of Technology. Her scientific work includes organ-on-a-chip technology, microfluidics, electrochemistry, bone and cartilage tissue engineering, neurobiology as well as iPSC-technology.
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Nicole Eger MSc.
Project Assistant
In her bachelor's, Nicole studied Bioscience at the Heidelberg University, Germany and completed her master’s in Cell and Molecular Biology at Uppsala University in Sweden.
As a trained biologist, she is currently working on developing a microfluidic chip device for the detection and analysis of anaerobic bacteria in drinking water.