News

  • January 2025 | What makes us sick? Exposome research introduced in a 4-minute video!

    Every day, we are all exposed to thousands of xenobiotics — through food, water, and air - but which ones are truly harmful? 

    Professor Benedikt Warth, Exposome Austria National Coordinator based at the Department of Food Chemistry and Toxicology, and his team investigate how environmental factors affect human health.

    "Food safety is better than ever, but challenges remain. Our choices—diet, smoking, alcohol—matter more than we think."

    Watch the video & listen to the podcast "Analytically Delicious: Food Safety Insights"  on YouTube!
    Benedikt Warth features in Episode 8.

Don’t miss the Exposome Austria Symposium & Open Stakeholder Day 2025 and have your say in what will be needed in the future in the intersection of human health, environment and chemistry!

Click the flyer preview to learn more and secure your spot at this event by registering via email @ exposome.austria@univie.ac.at !

  • September 2024  | Team EXPOMET Retreat in Horn

    Last week, we had another unforgettable retreat, this time in the picturesque town of Horn, located in the Waldviertel region of Lower Austria. Our cozy host for the event was Campus Horn hotel.

    Over the course of three days, we combined research presentations with workshops aimed at advancing ongoing projects, while also taking time to recharge with sports and social activities. Naturally, we enjoyed a delightful variety of food to keep us energized.

    The highlights?

    There were two! On Day 2, we had the pleasure of welcoming experienced TV moderator Andreas Gröbl, who offered us a special training on presentation skills and delivered keynotes on cybersecurity and high performance. On the final day, we wrapped up with a guided tour of the charming Rosenburg Castle nearby.

Lower Austrian Retreat

  • September 2024  | Three successful defensios this summer  

    We are proud and immensely happy to announce the successful defenses of three outstanding students from Prof. Warth’s research group!

    • Manuel Pristner defended his PhD dissertation on August 23, presenting “New Metabolomics Tools for Investigating the Exposome and Its Interactions with Drugs and the Microbiome". 

    • Sabrina Berger successfully held defensio of her Master’s thesis on September 4, titled “Measuring Polyphenols in Breast Milk by LC-MS/MS.”

    • Rosamaria Viterbo presented her Master’s thesis "Investigating the competition for uridine 5'-diphospho-glucuronosyltransferase in pharmaco-exposomics" on September 13 (yes, on Friday 13th!).

      Congratulations to Manuel, Sabrina, and Rosamaria for their achievements and this pivotal moment of their research careers - you guys made it!

  • July 2024 | An intense course successfuly completed

    Even at the end of our first 2-week intense practical lab course on mass-spec based exposomics, students still looking happy and smiling. Real fun also for the four tutors from our team!

    Find out more about this course here.

  • May 2024 | Ian Oesterle receives DER ALIMENTARIUS 2024 award


    May brought some more awards for our team members, and we couldn't be prouder!



    On May 28, 2024, the Austrian journal DIE ERNÄHRUNG (Nutrition in German) hosted a ceremony at the Viennese Exchange celebrating distinguished dissertations and master's thesis. One of this year's DER ALIMENTARIUS awardees is Ian Oesterle.

    Ian's research focuses on dietary polyphenols, which are active not only in their original organisms but also in the human body after consumption. Utilizing modern analytical methods, Ian explored how polyphenols transform at the molecular level within our bodies. His dissertation, "Investigating Polyphenol Exposure at the Omic-scale in Biological Matrices by Liquid Chromatography Coupled to Mass Spectrometry," was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Benedikt Warth and successfully defended in January 2024.

    Excellent work Ian!

  • May 2024 | Happy and truly proud to announce that our team member Yunyun Gu is a new DoSChem awardee (Vienna Doctoral School in Chemistry) of the "International Exchange Programme".

    Yun will be rewarded with a funding for a scientific stay at Harvard Medical School, USA which grants her with a wonderful opportunity to work further on her long-term project “Exposome epidemiology for xenobiotics exposures associated with breast cancer”.    Congrats Yun!

  • February 2024 | Benedikt interviewed by Ö1 

    Missed Benedikt Warth's talk for the Austria´s national broadcaster Ö1 on Feb 29?

    Listen to the enlightening discussion on exposome research until March 29 (in German only).
    For access beyond, email us for the recording file!

    https://oe1.orf.at/player/20240229/750519

  • January 2024 | Ian Oesterle defends PhD thesis

    On Friday January 26th, Ian brought his doctorate studies to a sucessful end by defending his PhD dissertation "Investigating Polyphenol Exposure at the Omic-scale in Biological Matrices by Liquid Chromatography Couples to Mass Spectrometry".

    Congratulations, Ian, all the best for your next endeavors!
  • October 2023 Welcome to Julia Füreder and Kathrin Sigl, our two new PhD students! We are looking forward to working together in the next few years!
  • October 2023 | Prof. A. Heather Eliassen visits Vienna

    On Oct 3, we had the honour of welcoming Prof. A. Heather Eliassen, a distinguished US researcher in nutrition and epidemiology from Harvard's Chan School of Public Health.

    Heather, who oversees the development of the EIRENE national node “Exposome Austria” as one of its advisory board members, delivered an enlightening lecture on 'Leveraging biomarkers in breast cancer epidemiology' at Medical University of Vienna and later took the time to meet with Exposome Austria consortium members, Prof. Eva Schernhammer and Prof. Benedikt Warth at the Mass Spectrometry Center of the University of Vienna. A day brimming with insights and collaboration. 

    #ExposomeAustria #BreastCancer #Epidemiology

  • MASTER THESIS "Optimization of sample preparation workflows forhigh-throughput exposomics"

    This thesis in the field of bioanalytical chemistry is dedicated to the development andoptimization of a workflow for high throughput LC-MS-based sample preparation inexposomic and metabolomic research.

    Exposure to environmental chemicals plays a critical role in the onset of diseases. Exposomeresearch aims to monitor relevant exogenous chemicals in human samples using a holisticapproach that can associate exposure levels with health outcomes. Due to its high sensitivityand selectivity, LC-MS is the key technology used to characterize these associations. To enablethe high-throughput capacity required, optimized high-throughput sample preparationworkflows are a key element that will be tested within this thesis.

    For more information check out: here

HIRING NOW! | ERC- and Exposome Austria funded position open! 


Within our new projects, we are looking for skilled technician. Apply via email now and become part of a dynamic and collaborative team investigating the impact of toxicants on human health:

Technician for Exposome Austria infrastructure (Lab management, MS library curation, routine measurements – German required) Sounds as exactly for you? Read the posting description here.

  • July 2023 | Happy to welcome our collaborator and visiting scientist Julia Kuligowski from La Fe, the Health Research Institute Hospital in Valencia (IIS La Fe). Julia will be supporting us during the summer working on early-life exposure assessment. Welcome!

  • June 30, 2023 | Interview for Rudolphina
    (for our German-speaking audience) 

Excited to share the latest insights from the interview with Professor Benedikt Warth in the University of Vienna's magazine, Rudolphina. The summarizing 
article "Schadstoffe gehen durch den Magen" (Toxins pass through the stomach) introduces one of the "hot topics" in today's science - exposome. Besides the current ERC Project EXPOMET and other topics, it also reveals:

  • What are the primary triggers of chronic diseases.
  • How exposome research contributes to unraveling the causes of breast cancer.
  • Why we should be shifting from the repair to personalized prevention medicine.

#ExposomeResearch #ExposomeAustria #ERC #Expomet

  • June 2023 ASMS 2023 | Exposome Austria at Mass Spec conference in Houston

Early this month, three members of the Exposome Austria team at the University of Vienna - Benedikt Warth, Max. L. Feuerstein and Vinicius V. Hernandes - traveled overseas to Houston, Texas, to present current exposomics research at the 71st conference of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS). Much interest in our new methods and results!

While Benedikt contributed as a presider of one the exposomics interest group workshops and gave a talk Exposomic approaches for next-generation human biomonitoring, our team has also a chance to present their posters on the following topics:

- Integrating veterinary drugs and pesticides into a targeted LC-MS/MS exposome-scale
  biomonitoring (Md Zakir Hossain et.al., presented by Benedikt Warth)
- Multi-class assessment of chemical exposure in dried blood spots: a pilot study (Vinicius V.
  Hernandes et. al.)
- HRMS-based Exposomics for Evaluating Embryonic Exposure and Cross-Placental Transfer of       
  Xenobiotics (Max L. Feuerstein et.al.)

#ASMSConference2023 #ExposomeAustria #ScientificResearch #EIRENE

  • October 2022 We are growing fast! Welcome to our two new PostDocs Jesse Peach and Max Feuerstein! We are very much looking forward to working together with them in the next few years.

  • August 2022 Congratulations to Yasmin Fareed who performed her master thesis under the supervision of Benedikt Warth and successfully defended it on Aug. 02. 

  • March 2022 On May 31 the Exposome Austria research infrastructure will be officially launched via an opening event at the University of Vienna. This is a public event and all interested stakeholders are most welcome! Please register early on: https://veranstaltung.univie.ac.at/exposome

  • January 2022 We are looking for a motivated student to perform a master thesis in polyphenol analytics in our group. More info here.
  • November 2021 Congratulations to Mira for the "New Ideas Award" of the DoSChem (Doctoral School of Chemistry) for the project “Investigating environmental exposures to infants using a multi-omics approach”. We are excited for the upcoming innovative experiments with Martin Schaier from the Koellensperber Lab! See here for more information!

  • October 2021 Congratulations to Benedikt for winning a prestigious "Förderpreis" of the City of Vienna in the category "mathematics, informatics, natural sciences and technology"! Check out here
  • September 2021 Longterm team-member Dominik left for starting a great position in industry. He joined our lab in 2015 as a PhD student, finished his thesis "Innovative LC-MS/MS breast milk biomonioring: Assessing infant's and mother's exposure to mycotoxins" in 2020 and stayed another successful year as PostDoc in the team. For sure, he will be missed! We wish him all the best for his new job and life in Upper Austria!

  • May 2021 Welcome to visiting scientist and Ernst Mach fellow Kola Ayeni from Nigeria who´s joining the team of Benedikt Warth for 9 months. 
  • March 2021 On Tuesday, March 16, the wordwide first journal in the field of exposomics was launched by Oxford University Press. Among the eight Associate Editors is also Benedikt Warth of the Department of Food Chemistry and Toxicology. For more information click here.
  • January 2021 On January 27 Benedikt Warth is guest speaker in a virtual research seminar hosted by the Social Exposome Cluster at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Check out this link to find out about how to join the Zoom meeting.

  • December 2020 Congratulations to the next graduate of the Food Chemistry master programme: Sadia Achmad successfully defended her master thesis entitled "Study on plant metabolites of prenylated flavanoids in fruits". She performed it at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) under the supervision of Michael Rychlik, Lance Buckett and Benedikt Warth.
  • December 2020 Congratulations to Benedikt Warth for receiving the "Feigl Preis" of the Austrian Society of Analytical Chemistry (ASAC)!

  • November 2020 Congrats to Dominik Braun for winning the ASAC JunganalytikerInnen-Preis 2020 together with Sebastian Guntner from the JKU. The award was sponsered by "FTC-Forensisch-Toxikologisches Labor BgmbH", Vienna. The award ceremony took place online.

  • November 2020 Congratulations to Thomas Jamnik for successfully defending his master theses!

  • October 2020 Very glad being involved in this great METLIN initiative published in Nature Methods ... now facilitating exposomics research with many toxicants, contaminants, drugs, and xenobiotics (i.e. the #exposome)

  • September 2020 Very warm welcome to our new Erasmus Exchange MSc Student Yasmin Borutzki!
  • September 2020 Welcome back, Dominik Braun, now in a PostDoc-position!
  • September 2020 Very warm welcome to our new PhD Student Magdalena Krausova!
  • August 2020 Grateful for the chance to contribute to this Nature Methods paper form the September issue!

  • June 2020 Congrats to Dominik Braun for successfully defending his PhD-thesis "Innovative LC-MS/MS breast milk biomonioring: Assessing infant's and mother's exposure to mycotoxin." The thesis was supervised by Prof. Marko and Prof. Warth.
  • June 2020 Congratulations to Patrick Windisch for successfully defending his master thesis. He was supervised by Benedikt Warth and Dominik Braun.

 

  • March 2020 Very warm welcome to our new PhD Student Ian Oesterle!
  • January 2020: Very warm welcome to our new PhD Student Manuel Pristner!

  • November 2019 Graduation: We congratulate Vincent Lüttig for successfully graduating from the master programme Food Chemistry! He performed his master thesis about the effect of Alternaria toxins on the metabolome of rats by LC-HRMS under the supervision of Benedikt Warth.
  • November 2019 ORF Interview: Saturday, Nov. 23, 2019, another interview of Benedikt Warth about the state of the art of the research about the exposome, to be seen at the ORF TVTHEK (in German, starting at 12:22).

  • November 2019: Plenary lecture of Assoc. Prof. Benedikt Warth and vivid discussion with Prof. Doris Marko at the 6. event "Umwelt in Gespräch" on Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2019. "Umwelt in Gespräch" is a series of public discussions organised by the Environmental Sciences Research Network of the University of Vienna in cooperation with the Natural History Museum Vienna.
    You can find a review at the  Online Standard and the lecture of Prof. Warth on youtube.

Skokanitsch Fotografie www.skokanitsch.com

Skokanitsch Fotografie www.skokanitsch.com

  • Aug. 2019: We congratulate our former PhD student Hannes Puntscher to his successfull defensio and graduation and wish him all the best for his future.

  • July 2019: Honoured to present our most recent research projects at the Yale School of Public Health and at a Gordon Research Conference. Great discussions with old and new friends and collaborators!
  • July 2019: We welcome our new Master Student Patrick Windisch and Erasmus Intern Ipek Savas!
  • Mar. 2019: We welcome our new Bachelor Student Natascha Stoirer!
  • Feb. 2019: Best Poster Award: Congratulations to Dominik Braun who won the "Best Poster Award" at the MassSpec-Forum 2019 in Vienna, Austria

  • Jan. 2019: Great to see that our current paper on combined breast cancer therapy was accepted and selected to be the cover paper of the January issue of Metabolites.
  • Jan. 2019: We welcome our Research Fellow from India Kausar Ansari!
  • Dec. 2018: Dominik’s first paper was accepted by Analytical Chemistry. Congrats! Open access via UNIVIE’s support.

  • Oct. 2018: We welcome our new Bachelor Student Maximilian Eiser and our new Master Student Vincent Lüttig!
  • Sept. 2018: Our research on untargeted mass spec screening in foodstuff was covered in a radio interview: download
  • May 2018: Congratulations to our Master Student Karin Preindl who won the "Best Presentation Award" at the JunganalytikerInnen Forum 2018! Great appreciation of three months of hard work.

  • May 2018: We welcome our new PhD Student Mira Flasch!
  • Feb. 2018: We welcome Karin Preindl as a new master student in our team. She will focus on endocrine active chemicals related to food.
  • Autumn 2017: New web page launched