Dr Andrea Dichlberger

Dr Andrea Dichlberger studied Genetics/Microbiology at the University of Vienna, Austria. She performed her subsequent Diploma and Ph.D. research at the Medical University of Vienna in the group of Professor Wolfgang J. Schneider. The title of her Ph.D. thesis was 'Apolipoprotein A-V, a regulator of serum triglyceride levels', which she defended summa cum laude in May 2008. Currently, she is a postdoctoral research fellow in the group of Professor Petri T. Kovanen at the Wihuri Research Institute, Helsinki, Finland, for which she was awarded an Erwin-Schrödinger Fellowship from the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF). During her graduate research, she studied lipoprotein-receptor-mediated metabolic phenomena with a particular emphasis on the interaction of apolipoprotein A-V with members of the low-density-lipoprotein receptor family, and became interested in the regulation and molecular mechanisms of lipolytic and lipid conversion processes. Her present research at the Wihuri Research Institute focuses on the role of human mast cells in atherogenesis. Initial results have shown that biologically active lipid mediators are derived from arachidonic acid-containing triacylglycerols stored in cytoplasmic lipid bodies of mast cells. Her work has been published in high-quality international journals and she obtained awards at several national and international scientific conferences for presentations of her research.