People / Markus Hengstschläger

Lecturer/s

Markus Hengstschläger

Markus Hengstschläger

Markus Hengstschläger, who was born in Upper Austria, received his PhD at the age of 24 with special distinction; he was then a research assistant at the Vienna Biocenter. An Erwin-Schrödinger bursary enabled him to further specialize on human genetics at Yale University. At the age of  29 he was appointed an associate professor and became professor for medical genetics at 35. He is involved in basic research at the Vienna Medical University (discovery of stem cells in human amniotic fluid, research on congenital tuberous sclerosis, etc.), in teaching and in routine diagnostics in the field of medical genetics.. 

He has received a great number of prizes and awards for his work as a scientist and as a teacher; he is the author of many papers published in the most prestigious specialist journals and a member of several editorial boards of international journals. Hengstschläger is a member of a great number of learned societies, Hochschulrat of the Pädagogische Hochschule Vienna, a member of the Austrian Commission for Genetic Technologies, of the Ethics Commission of the Austrian Federal Chancellor, of the Vienna Advisory Board Bio. and Medical Ethics. He was also a member of the Vatican’s Pontificia Academia Pro Vita. For his bestselling book, “Die Macht der Gene” (Ecowin Verlag), which was voted the most popular work in the category of non-fiction by readers (Buchliebling 2007), he was awarded the “Golden Book” by the Hauptverband des Österreichi¬schen Buchhandels in 2007. In 2008 he published another scientific blockbuster, “Endlich unendlich”. Hengstschläger is also the presenter of the ORF Ö1 science programme “Radiodoktor – Gesundheit und Medizin”.