FORA.tv Speaker - Josef Penninger

Josef Penninger studied Medicine in Innsbruck, Austria and then moved to Toronto where he worked for 13 years, at the end as Full Professor of Immunology and Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto. In 2003 he moved to Vienna to become the founding Director of the newly established Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA). Within a few years, IMBA has now become the largest and most successful "Max Plank/Howard Hughes-like" Institute in Austria.

Penninger has published more than 350 scientific papers and has been twice among the top 10 hottest researchers (most cited scientists) in all fields of science in the world. He received multiple awards, holds Professorships in Canada, Vienna, and China, is the youngest elected member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and also a member of the Young Global leaders of the World Economic Forum.

His discoveries range from the first genetic description of the key regulator of bone loss that affect millions of people to finding key genes that control pain, inflammation, of autoimmune disease and heart diseases, or the first report of a gene that controls electricity regulated wound healing. Recently his group has found an entirely new regulator of fever and - using whole genome system genetics - established the first global map of obesity.