THE p-care TEAM

ADSI

Austrian Drug Screening Institute

Innsbruck, Austria

The Austrian Drug Screening Institute (ADSI) was founded in 2012 as a research enterprise of the University of Innsbruck (LFU) and offers research services for companies as well as academic research institutes in the fields of drug development, phytopharma, dietary supplements, phytocosmetics, nutrition and related industries.
The ADSI was initiated by the analytical chemist Prof. Dr. Günther K. Bonn, Head of the Institute of Analytical Chemistry and Radiochemistry, University of Innsbruck, and by the cell biologist and physician Prof. Dr. Lukas A. Huber, Head of the Cell Biology Division at the Medical University of Innsbruck. Both Prof. Bonn and Prof. Huber are the scientific directors of the ADSI.
In ADSI, analytical chemistry and cell biology are combined in a unique way. The biological division designs cell-based assays that mimics human tissues in the lab and thus are particularly relevant. On the other hand, the analytical section is able to analyse and read different parameters, no matter if the basic material derives from plants to extract potential active substances or from cell supernatants to detect changes in the regulation of cytokines. Furthermore, a bioinformatics division was developed to integrate the complex readouts and evaluate the resulting data sets. Research services developed at ADSI are the basis of three pillars strategy:

1) screening and product development,

2) mode of action studies and confirmation of cosmetic claims, and

3) quality control analyses for nutrition and dietary supplements industries.

The ADSI employs about 25 persons, mainly highly qualified scientists. The institute is equipped with a state-of-the-art infrastructure. It became an integral part of the Austrian research landscape and works closely with numerous universities and research institutions, as well as with industrial partners in Austria and abroad.
Although the Institute is mainly financed by the state of Austria and the state of Tyrol, revenues from research contracts contribute significantly to the financing of ADSI.

Project core groups

Basic&Translational Research Unit

Huber Lukas

Team leader

Lukas Huber

Lukas A. Huber is co-founder and scientific co-director of the Austrian Drug Screening Institute (ADSI) in Innsbruck.
After his studies of Medicine at the University of Innsbruck, Huber moved to EMBL in Heidelberg, and then to the University of Geneva. In 1996, he started his own laboratory at the Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna. In 2002, he was appointed professor of Cell biology at MUI (Medical University of Innsbruck), where he is also scientific director of MUI Biocenter and head of its Division of cell biology. At Biocenter, he initiated and coordinated various national and EU Projects.

From 2009 to 2019 Huber was Chief Scientific Officer of ONCOTYROL - Center of Personalized Cancer Medicine Ltd. He co-founded ADSI in 2012.

Huber’s research interests focus, in particular, on understanding the spatial-temporal regulation of signal transduction through scaffold complexes. His basic research has provided important insights, for example in the field of signal transduction. He discovered the functions of scaffold and adapter proteins, in particular of the LAMTOR complex, which coordinates cell division, cell growth, cell death and cell migration.

He authored several scientific publications (https://scholar.google.at/citations? user=UbaAcfIAAAAJ&hl=de) with an H-Factor of 65.
Gstir Ronald,

Team leader

Ronald Gstir

Ronald Gstir heads the laboratory of the biological division at the Austrian Drug Screening Institute GmbH (ADSI).

He studied Molecular Biology at the Leopold-Franzens-University of Innsbruck and obtained his PhD from the European Molecular Biology Lab (EMBL) and the University of Heidelberg. Gstir had his research training at EMBL and at the Medical University of Innsbruck in the laboratories of Professor Lukas A. Huber and Professor Alexander Hüttenhofer.

He has knowledge and competences in the fields of high content screenings, test methods for the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and food industries, organoid technology and RNA biology.

Filipek Przemyslaw,

Przemyslaw Filipek

Przemyslaw Filipek is a Post-doc of the biological division laboratory of the Austrian Drug Screening Institute GmbH (ADSI).
He is an experienced researcher in the field of molecular and cell biology. He studied Biotechnology and Food Sciences at the Lodz Technical University of Lodz, in Poland, then obtained its PhD degree in Molecular cell biology and oncology at the Medical University of Innsbruck.
He acquired knowledge and expertise in the generation of organoid cultures from various organs, in organoid manipulation and characterization. He previously participated in the Interreg project PreCanMed.

Anich Celine

Celine Anich

Celine Anich is a lab technician at the Austrian Drug screening Institute GmbH and focuses on the work with organoids. Her knowledge and skills are based on the expertise gained from PreCanMed.

She has a bachelor’s degree in food engineering and biotechnology from the Management Center Innsbruck. Temporarily she worked in the quality assurance department of a company focusing on natural cosmetics. Since April 2020 she has been working with ADSI.

THE p-care TEAM

ADSI

Research lead

partners

P-Care