What drives and inspires our scientists and how they would like to see the world in ten years from now!

The next scientist in our series of Imptox People is Michelle Epstein from the Medical University of Vienna, specialized in the fields of Allergy, Immunology, and Internal Medicine.  Find out from her how she got into science, what her challenges are and what she would like to see happening in her field in the years to come:

“At a very young age, I wanted to be a doctor to cure people with diseases and to do that, I started to learn science. Through my academic experience, I found myself always fascinated by immune-mediated diseases. Autoimmune disease and allergy are particularly interesting because in one case we make immune responses to self-proteins, and in the other, we fight against harmless non-pathogenic proteins. This is what pushed my curiosity and is one of the reasons why I specialised in this field. Today, I enjoy particularly training others to make new discoveries even though I think finding excellent students to train and sufficient funding opportunities can be challenging at times. To be part of the Imptox project is very exciting as I am looking forward to discovering that there is no demonstrable adverse effect related to inhaled and ingested MNPs on allergic asthma and food allergy. What I hope to see in the future in the next 10 years of research in this area is more understanding of the mechanisms underlying allergic sensitization.”