News from the Network: Austrian Researchers Abroad
A Tribute: Hugo Moser, Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics, 1915–2007
bridges vol. 14, July 2007 / News from the Network: Austrian Researchers Abroad
Hugo Moser
Hugo Moser, 82, past professor of neurology and pediatrics at The Johns Hopkins University, died January 20th of this year at Johns Hopkins Hospital of complications from recent vascular surgery after previously undergoing surgery for pancreatic cancer in October 2006.
Moser devoted five decades of his life to the investigation of genetic disorders in children’s nervous systems. Since 1976 he had been a professor at The Johns Hopkins University, and was director of the renowned Neurogenetics Research Center at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore until 1988.
His research on X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a rare and eventually deadly childhood disorder causing deterioration of the patient’s nervous system, was brought to public attention by the 1992 Hollywood movie, Lorenzo's Oil. The movie depicts the intertwined lives of Dr. Moser, authority in the field of nervous disorders, and the struggle of Augusto and his wife Michaela Odone to find a cure for their ALD-stricken son, Lorenzo. The self-taught Odones came up with a radically new treatment: an oil consisting of fatty acids found in olive and rapeseed oils. Shortly before his death, Moser’s 2005 study suggested a positive effect for Lorenzo’s oil, which is still regarded by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as experimental.
In a touching tribute to Hugo Moser (to read all tributes made to Prof. Moser, please visit the Kennedy Krieger Insitute’s website dedicated to him), Augusto Odone reflects on his relationship to Moser, and offers an insight into the life story he and his family shared with Hugo Moser, a story that became known to people worldwide through Lorenzo’s Oil:
bridges vol. 14, July 2007 / News from the Network: Austrian Researchers Abroad
The Austrian Wirtschaftsservice (aws; Economic Service) is best known for supporting the Austrian economy. It is a limited-liability company that provides assistance for public institutions as well as for private clients. bridges spoke with Dr. Sonja Hammerschmid, director of the Technology & Innovation Division of the aws, about the possibilities of support and grants for research-related enterprises.
bridges vol. 14, 12. July 2007 / News from the Network: Austrian Researchers Abroad
In its "moves & milestones" section, bridges presents career steps and other outstanding events in the professional lives of Austrian scientists and scholars in the US and Canada.
Alexander Bankier will join the faculty of Harvard Medical School, starting in September 2007, and will hold the position of director of Functional Respiratory Imaging at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (http://www.bidmc.harvard.edu/sites/bidmc/home.asp).
Alexander Bankier studied music and medicine in Vienna. He is currently associate professor of radiology at the Medical University of Vienna and the Vienna General Hospital. As an author of numerous publications and book contributions, his research focuses on all aspects of thoracic radiology.
Hannes Leitgeb
was appointed professor of mathematical logic and philosophy of mathematics in the Departments of Philosophy and Mathematics of the University of Bristol (UK).
Leitgeb has a Ph.D. in mathematics and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Salzburg, where he has been an assistant professor of philosophy since 2001. After a year as a Schrödinger Fellow at Stanford University, he received offers from Stanford and Bristol, and finally accepted a position at the University of Bristol. He is a member of the European Science Foundation Pool of Reviewers, a managing editor of Studia Logica, an associate editor of Erkenntnis, and a subject editor for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. In 2006 he was a finalist of the Gödel Centenary Young Scholars' Competition, which was organized by the John Templeton Foundation to find the ten most promising scholars worldwide in logic, computation, and philosophy of mathematics.
bridges vol. 14, July 2007 / News from the Network: Austrian Researchers Abroad
Fond zur Foerderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung
The FWF (Austrian Science Fund) is Austria's central body for the promotion of basic research. It invests in new ideas that contribute to advancing knowledge and thereby further development. In doing so, the FWF is equally committed to all branches of science and the humanities and is guided in its operations solely by the standards of the international scientific community. From the very start, an international perspective has been one of the
cornerstones of the FWF's philosophy. The FWF has been providing
generous levels of support for cooperation between Austrian scientists
and their partners abroad: e.g., the mobility programs for young
researchers such as Erwin Schrödinger (outgoing) and Lise Meitner
(incoming) are firmly embedded in the FWF's funding portfolio.
Triggered by a suggestion from the bm:vit (Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation und Technologie), the FWF has recently taken a further step in this direction: As of June 1, 2007, it is possible for the first time to request funding for travel and accommodation costs and for the salary of foreign project partners temporarily working in Austria.
bridges vol. 14, July 12th 2007 / News from the Network
The OST network of Austrian scientists & scholars abroad was
established by the Office of Science & Technology (OST) at the
Austrian Embassy in Washington, DC, and focuses on the outreach of
government-related agencies to Austrian scientists in North America.
Its main objective has been to support the scientific community with
information and specific advice wherever necessary and requested.
Encouraged by the OST, an independent association - ASciNA (Austrian
Scientists and Scholars in North America) - was founded in 2002 with
local chapters being established all over the US and Canada. For
further information about ASciNA please visit www.ascina.at.
ASciNA Pacific North
Contact: Julius Halaschek-Wiener at pacific.north(at)ascina.at
beach in Vancouver
The ASciNA group Pacific North in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, will hold two events in the summer. We will organize a regular meeting in early July, at which Dr. Dieter Fink will present his exciting work at the British Columbia Cancer Agency. Following tradition, we will have dinner and drinks afterwards.
As last year's ASciNA hiking event was such a great success, Dr. Johannes Müllegger will again organize an overnight hiking/camping event in early August. All members of the Pacific North Chapter, including scientists in Oregon, Washington State, and Alaska are of course welcome to join the group!
"If you give me the privilege of that one premise, you'll see that everything follows," a Jesuit schoolteacher once said to a young Karl Pribram, who had questioned the laws of religion. "I answered that I had great respect for his intelligence and that of course everything would follow once I had granted the premise. So I didn't grant the premise," Pribram explains during our interview, and adds "and I have since questioned every premise - those of others as well as my own - and it is this that has been the touchstone of my career in science."
Austrian-born neurophysiologist and distinguished research professor in cognitive neuroscience at Georgetown University, Dr. Karl H. Pribram - best known for developing the Holographic Brain Model - is a self-described "man on the edge" in the world of academia. He has dedicated his entire career to the mind, the brain, and their functions. Perhaps even more importantly, Pribram has based his career and his life on one personal model that stands just as strong as the scientific models he has developed - not granting the premise, and testing the waters even if they go against the current.
“Figuring out how things work has always been my passion,” explains Karolin Luger, a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator and Monfort Professor at Colorado State University. Very likely this natural curiosity is one of the big factors in Luger’s formula for success. While a research assistant professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, ETH Zürich) she solved the structure of the nucleosome, a major breakthrough in the scientific community that is now cited in every modern textbook of molecular biology.
→ A Chromosome is a single large macromolecule of DNA. Only during
nuclear division do chromosomes have the typical X shape in which they
are most commonly portrayed. The two arms are called Chromatids, each
of which consists of two strands of DNA. Chromatids are joined at the
Centromere and consist of Chromatin, a complex of DNA and proteins that
makes up the chromosome.
What’s happening inside a cell can be compared to an old-fashioned music tape and a cassette player. The genetic information is stored in the DNA, much as music is encoded in a linear way on the magnetic tape. In order to listen to the music, it must be decoded back to sounds. A lot of music can be stored on one tape, and that one tape must be rather small to fit into the tape player; hence, the encoded music must somehow be compressed. This process of packing and unpacking is quite similar to what occurs in human DNA, which stores information on “how and what kind of human to build.” However, the nucleus, the place where the DNA is stored, is exceedingly small. Luger’s main area of research focuses on how the DNA is physically packaged in the cell’s nucleus, and how this packaging affects “which type of music you are listening at any given time,” as she explains.
The Austrian Wirtschaftsservice (aws; Economic Service) is best known for supporting the Austrian economy. It is a limited-liability company that provides assistance for public institutions as well as for private clients. bridges spoke with Dr. Sonja Hammerschmid, director of the Technology & Innovation Division of the aws, about the possibilities of support and grants for research-related enterprises.
will join the faculty of Harvard Medical School, starting in September 2007, and will hold the position of director of Functional Respiratory Imaging at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (
was appointed professor of mathematical logic and philosophy of mathematics in the Departments of Philosophy and Mathematics of the University of Bristol (UK).
