Ruth Birner-Gruenberger

Ruth Birner-Gruenberger is a Full Professor for Bioanalytics at the Vienna University of Technology, with ongoing affiliations as Associate Professor at the Institute of Pathology, Medical University of Graz. She leads the Omics Center Graz and directs the Mass Spectrometry Core Facility.

• 1991–1998: Studies and Dipl.-Ing. (MSc, high distinction) in Chemistry, Graz University of Technology
• 1996–1997: Master Thesis at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT), Australia
• 2002: Dr. techn. (PhD, high distinction) in Chemistry, Graz University of Technology

Her research focuses on lipid metabolism, integrating proteomics and metabolomics to study lipolysis, fatty acid homeostasis, and metabolic interplay in health, cancer, and lipid-associated diseases. She develops workflows for enzyme discovery, metabolite analysis, and mass spectrometer optimization.

She has mentored students including Katarina Fritz, Juergen Gindlhuber, and Tamara Tomin, whose projects span topics like lipid hydrolysis, adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL) roles, and polyesterase discovery.

Ruth has held leadership roles such as:

• Director, Mass Spectrometry Core Facility (2007–2011)
• President, Austrian Proteomics and Metabolomics Association (2015–)
• Visiting Professor at ETH Zürich, UC Berkeley, and University of Witwatersrand