Alexander Mahnert, PhD

Dr. Mahnert’s decision to become a microbiologist arose from a fundamental interest in the limits of life. Archaea were known for their extremophilic character, and so as a young bachelor’s student in molecular biology from Graz (Austria), he reached out to the Archaea Center of the University of Regensburg (Germany). During an internship in 2008, he got to know Prof. Christine Moissl-Eichinger and decided to do his master’s thesis from 2011 to 2012 in Regensburg. From there he went to the California Institute of Technology and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In Pasadena, he focused primarily on characterizing the microbiome of cleanrooms. This is where he became interested in the interactions between the human microbiome and the built environment. Prof. Gabriele Berg at TU Graz (Austria) wanted to move into this area of research and took him on as a graduate student. While working on his PhD thesis on the microbiome of indoor environments, he was able to show that not just humans, but also plants, influence the microbiome of a room. Furthermore, he was able to show that antimicrobial resistances at the metagenome level correlated positively with intensified hygiene measures but negatively with microbial diversity. As a postdoc, Dr. Mahnert returned to Christine Moissl-Eichinger’s group (now established as a BioTechMed Professor at the Medical University of Graz) to continue his work on the topic of the indoor microbiome but with a particular focus on the human archaeome. As a University Assistant in Prof. Christine Moissl-Eichinger’s lab, he has established himself as a valuable support and contact person regarding bioinformatics methods at the Medical University of Graz.

While visiting the Institute for Systems Biology and the Gibbons lab, Dr. Mahnert established new collaborations and joint projects, and added an additional layer of international research experience to his career path.