News

Chatting with Your Cells: Natural-Language AI for Single-Cell Data Analysis Single-cell sequencing provides great insights into the inner workings of cells – but making sense of the data requires advanced bioinformatics skills. Researchers at CeMM, Medical University of Vienna, and St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute have now developed an artificial intelligence (AI) method and […]

St. Anna CCRI Appoints New Scientific Directors: Eleni Tomazou and Sabine Taschner-Mandl (Vienna, October 2025) The St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Eleni Tomazou and Dr. Sabine Taschner-Mandl, two internationally recognized experts, as new Scientific Directors. With their complementary expertise and shared dedication to

Career Paths in Biomedical Science Insights from St. Anna CCRI’s First Open House Event St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI) recently opened its doors for a career-focused evening designed to give young people insight into the diverse professional opportunities in biomedical science. The event attracted participants at various career stages for an

BIF Fellowship: Building Ewing Sarcoma Models from Scratch Due to a lack of good models and an unknown cell of origin, Ewing sarcoma still poses a great puzzle in childhood cancer research. Hana Bernhardova, a PhD student in Eleni Tomazou’s group, has now received the prestigious PhD Fellowship from the Boehringer Ingelheim Fonds to tackle

Better Therapy Selection for Childhood Leukemia Despite decades of optimization of treatment protocols, the prognosis for acute myeloid leukemia in children (pediatric AML, pedAML) remains poor for many patients. A research team from St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI), the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences,

Four Researchers Honored for High-Impact Pediatric Studies The 63rd Annual Meeting of the Austrian Society of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (ÖGKJ) brought together leading researchers under the theme “Together into the Future.” This year’s conference featured comprehensive discussions on the latest advances in pediatric medicine, with plenary sessions focusing on rare diseases, artificial intelligence, and

30 Percent Relapse Rate in Childhood AML: Researcher Seeks New Weak Points in Blood Cancer (Vienna, September 2025) Every third child with acute myeloid leukemia suffers a relapse – a problem that Christina Horstmann from St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI) aims to tackle with an innovative approach: She investigates which zinc

Neuroblastoma: New combination method reliably detects hidden tumor cells (Vienna, 04.09.2025) – Hidden tumor cells in the bone marrow are one of the greatest challenges in treating neuroblastoma, one of the most common childhood cancers. St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute and international partner centers have achieved decisive progress in a new study: by combining three

Bridging to clinical translation: Professor Kaan Boztug honored for his research on personalized medicine approaches for inborn errors of immunity (Vienna, August 2025) Prof. Dr. med. Kaan Boztug has been awarded the prestigious Novartis Prize for Therapy-Relevant Immunological Research 2025. As a pediatrician and expert in rare diseases of the immune system and blood formation, Boztug

Research for Better Treatment of Childhood Cancer The Cancer Evolution and Genomics research group at ST. Anna CCRI, led by George Cresswell, investigates how childhood cancer develops and why some patients respond differently to treatments. The scientists analyze how genetic changes evolve in tumors and aim to identify new approaches for better treatments. The goal:

Networking as a natural consequence of outstanding research …with Florian Halbritter In modern science, collaboration is the key to innovation and breakthroughs, especially in complex research fields such as cancer genomics. Florian Halbritter, head of the “Developmental Cancer Genomics” research group at St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute, exemplifies the importance of this interdisciplinary collaboration

A Light Against Cancer A team of scientists at St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI) has developed a method to eliminate cancer cells with precision, without harming healthy tissue. Using a light-activatable compound called SBTubA4P, they successfully destroyed tumor cells in an animal model. This promising discovery could one day offer a

How collaboration drives innovation… with Florian Grebien Collaborations are essential in the world of science. In addition to the exchange of knowledge and technologies, they also offer valuable insights into different cultural and methodological approaches to research. This view is shared by Florian Grebien, Principal Investigator (PI) of the Biology of Pediatric Leukemia Oncoproteins research

Women in Science: Researchers Shaping the Future Science thrives on curiosity, perseverance, and the passion to better understand the world. Yet, for many women, the path to a career in research has not always been straightforward. Stereotypes, structural barriers, and a lack of role models still discourage some girls from considering a future in science.

Very Rare Subtype of Childhood Leukemia Characterized A team at the St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI) has headed an international collaborative study to characterize a very rare subtype of childhood B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The results, recently published in the journal Leukemia show that patients with this subtype need optimized therapy.

Epigenetics Brings Hope for New Therapies Epigenetics is a key area of pediatric cancer research. Scientists are investigating molecular drivers of tumors, hoping to discover new therapies through these approaches. St. Anna Children’s Cancer Research Institute (St. Anna CCRI) has long focused on epigenetics and recently hosted a networking meeting on the topic. Adult tumors