Brigitte Gasser

Assoc. Prof. Brigitte Gasser is an Associate Professor of Microbial Systems Biotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). She leads the "Sustainable Production" area at the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (acib) and heads the CD Laboratory for Growth-Decoupled Protein Production in Yeast. Her research focuses on optimizing yeast-based bioproduction systems, particularly Pichia pastoris and Komagataella phaffii, to enhance recombinant protein secretion and metabolic engineering for autotrophic growth using CO₂.

Education highlights include a Doctorate (2007) and Habilitation in Molecular Biotechnology (2013) from BOKU, alongside research stays at VTT Biotechnology (Finland). She has pioneered breakthroughs like CO₂ fixation in yeast (earning the 2019 BOKU Innovation Award) and engineered synthetic Calvin cycles for autotrophic growth (2019, 2020).

Her work integrates systems biology approaches with genetic engineering, addressing bottlenecks in protein secretion, oxidative folding, and metabolic pathways. Notable achievements include enhanced protein production via vacuolar sorting disruption (2019), transcription factor engineering, and modular cloning systems (GoldenPiCS).

Awards span academic and industry recognition, including the FEMS Yeast Research Best Article (2022), Science2Business Award (2012), and multiple poster awards for yeast physiology research. She advises on microbial biotechnology projects and contributes to knowledge transfer through industry partnerships and academic leadership roles.