Medical University of Vienna

The Binder Lab is located at the Department of Laboratory Medicine of the Medical University of Vienna. The group is investigating immune mechanisms of atherosclerosis with a special focus on the role of innate and humoral immunity and how this can be exploited for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Major efforts are based on the discovery of humoral immune responses targeting so-called oxidation specific epitopes (OSE), which are generated by lipid-peroxidation and are present on oxidized LDL, dying cells and extracellular vesicles. Current efforts are focused on defining the binding properties of these humoral immune components, which include natural IgM antibodies and certain complement components, and the molecular mechanisms by which they function in both physiology (clearance of apoptotic cells) and pathophysiology (vascular inflammation, thrombosis). Another major interest of the laboratory aims at characterizing the generation and functional activity of extracellular vesicles carrying OSE in atherothrombosis.

Christoph J. Binder received his MD degree from the University of Vienna, Austria, in 1997 and his PhD degree in Molecular Pathology from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), USA, in 2002. Following postdoctoral training at the Department of Medicine of UCSD, he established his own research group at the Medical University of Vienna in 2005. In 2009 he was appointed Full Professor of Atherosclerosis Research at the Medical University of Vienna. He is a specialist in Laboratory Medicine and currently Deputy Head of the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the Medical University of Vienna. He is also PI of the Austrian Familial Hypercholesterolemia Registry. Since 2014 Christoph Binder acts as a referee and board member of the Austrian Science Fund. From 2016 until 2019 he was a member of the Executive Committee and since 2021 he is Vice President of the European Atherosclerosis Society. Christoph Binder has authored >200 original and review papers in important journals, including Nature Medicine and Nature. He is Co-Editor of Atherosclerosis and Section Editor of Thrombosis & Haemostasis.

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Website : https://labormedizin.meduniwien.ac.at/en/research/research-groups/binder-group/