Karin Hoffmann-sommergruber PhD

Karin Hoffmann-Sommergruber was born in Vienna, Austria, and studied Biology and Environmental Sciences at the University of Vienna. She carried out her diploma thesis and PhD thesis at the Department of Biochemistry of the Medical Faculty at the University of Vienna. For post-doctoral training, she joined the group of Profs. Dietrich Kraft and Otto Scheiner at the Department of Experimental Pathology at the Medical Faculty, University of Vienna. Since then she has been working on various aspects of allergology. In 1995 she received a short-term EMBO fellowship at the Swiss Institute of Asthma and Allergy Research, Davos Switzerland in Prof. Reto Crameri's lab. In 1999 she was awarded a Hertha Firnberg career development grant for female scientists from the Austrian Science Fund and received her venia docendi in 2000. Since then she has been heading the research group Molecular Allergology.

Karin Hoffmann-Sommergruber has participated in several EC-financed projects in the 5th and 6th frameworks and coordinated the project Plant Food Allergies: field to Table Strategies for reducing their incidence in Europe (SAFE). In addition, she has performed research financed by the Austrian ministries of health and agriculture, respectively. She has established international and national collaborations within the academia and industry. Recently she was actively involved in reassessing the guidelines on the assessment of allergenicity of genetically modified foods established by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA). Currently, Karin Hoffmann-Sommergruber is Secretary of the Food Allergy Interest Group of the European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology (EAACI).