Office of Science & Technology - Austrian Scientist of the Year 2008, Fatima Ferreira, Awakens a “Sleeping Beauty”

Austrian Scientist of the Year 2008, Fatima Ferreira, Awakens a “Sleeping Beauty”

bridges vol. 22, July 2009 / Feature Articles

By Juliet M. Beverly

Fatima Ferreira

Austrian Scientist of Year 2008, Dr. Fatima Ferreira, director of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Allergy Diagnosis and Therapy at the University of Salzburg in Austria, gave an evening lecture at the Embassy of Austria in Washington, DC, on June 29, at which she discussed a topic that affects 25 percent of people in Europe, 20 percent of people in the US, and millions around the world - allergies. Ferreira's current research focuses on the development of birch, ragweed, mugwort, Japanese cedar, and cypress pollen allergy vaccines. With the lab's industrial partnership with the Austrian biotechnology company, Biomay, Ferreira and her colleagues were involved in the first worldwide development of recombinant birch pollen allergen Bet v 1 - an artificial allergen that provides a more specialized approach to curing allergies.

A jury from the Austrian Club of Education and Science Journalists elected Ferreira as Austrian Scientist of the Year 2008 and, as in years past, the Office of Science & Technology (OST) at the Embassy of Austria invited the Austrian Scientist of the Year to Washington to present her work - using the US capital as a platform to communicate the work to the American public. Hosted by the OST, the event was held in cooperation with the Embassy of Brazil in Washington, DC, and was also part of the European Science Series in collaboration with Euraxess .

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