Wolfgang Holnthoner
Wolfgang Holnthoner obtained his MSc in Microbiology and Genetics and his PhD in Molecular Biology, both from the University of Vienna, Austria. For more than 17 years he has been working on endothelial cells, both from blood and lymphatic vessel origin. After his postdoctoral training with Kari Alitalo at the University of Helsinki, Finland, where he had been exploring signal transduction in lymphatic endothelial cells, he started at the Ludwig-Boltzmann-Institute for Experimental and Clinical Traumatology to work on strategies for prevascularisation of tissue engineered constructs. He is interested in the basic functions of endothelial cells in vasculogenesis, angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis. His group's primary focus is the regeneration/engineering of microvascular structures. To this aim he employs co-culturing primary endothelial cells with supporting cell types to achieve functional oxygen and nutrient support of tissues. He uses the physiological and biocompatible scaffold fibrin to provide the cells the necessary 3D-environment for microvascularization. In addition, his research involves the integration of lymphatic vessels, since they are the ones, which transport the interstitial fluid in tissues back to the blood circulation, and without them human life would be inconceivable. Moreover, he strives to explore the emerging role of extracellular vesicles (EV) in intercellular communication. These efforts contribute to the development of therapies aimed for regeneration of diseased tissues.
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