Our Mission

The GMI is a research institute devoted to plant biology. Plants created our atmosphere and sustain life on earth. Our goal is to make fundamental discoveries that help us understand how plants function — discoveries that may be essential to address global challenges like climate change. Our research ranges from molecules to ecosystems, involving a wide variety of plants — all depending on the question. We believe in enabling researchers at all levels to pursue big questions in an intellectually stimulating, diverse, and collaborative environment. Key to our success are minimal hierarchy and bureaucracy, outstanding facilities, and core funding.

 

About us

The GMI is part of the Vienna BioCenter, a leading life science cluster comprising several research institutes, universities, and start-up companies and located close to the center of Vienna. The institute is owned and funded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). Research topics include basic mechanisms of epigenetics, cell biology, plant-pathogen interactions, developmental biology, and population genetics. The GMI provides a lively, international working environment with around 130 people, embedded in a campus with over 1700 people from more than 70 countries. The working language is English. We strive for a friendly, inclusive environment, and provide an on-campus child care center.

A balancing act: How autophagy buys time during viral infection
How plants grow toward the light
Borrowing plants’ recycling tricks to treat Parkinson’s disease
Unlocking a tiny plant’s big potential for research and biotechnology
DOC Fellowship Awarded to Zeynep Begüm Şen
Tal Dahan-Meir Receives ESPRIT Grant from the FWF
ÖAW exhibition invites to “Discovering Women Researchers”
Frédéric Berger Joins FWF Special Research Program "Meiosis"

Cho CH, Russett CS, Harvey ZH, et al. (2026) Emergence of histone-based chromatin complexity in Asgard archaea. bioRxiv:2026.07.02.735847.

Oda S, Tominaga S, Takeuchi S, et al. (2026) Antagonistic histone H2A variants and autonomous heterochromatin formation shape epigenomic patterns in Arabidopsis. Nat Commun [epub] preprint bioRxiv:2025.10.19.683276.
 

Schuller SK, Collison R, Kumar A, et al. (2026) The structure of a 2-MDa chloroplast RNA polymerase reveals unexpected evolutionary complexity. bioRxiv:2026.06.23.732312.

Köhle AB, Graf A, Kvedarauskaite L, et al. (2026) Dbf4-dependent kinase promotes meiotic DNA end resection through cyclin-dependent kinase 12 and DNA-2 in Caenorhabditis elegans. bioRxiv:2026.06.17.732919.

Lee D, Ruprecht C, Lee J-M, et al. (2026) High-Throughput Glycan Array Screening Reveals Rhamnogalacturonan-I as a Ligand for Arabidopsis Leucine-Rich Repeat Receptor Kinases involved in Plant Immunity Mol PLant [epub] preprint bioRxiv:2025.01.29.635407.

Birklbauer MJ, Geetha SS, Getreuer P, et al. (2026) A DIA-based quantitative crosslinking mass spectrometry framework for dynamic structural proteomics. bioRxiv:2026.06.16.732730.

Mayer RL and Mechtler K (2026) Digging deeper into the immunopeptidome with TripleToolWF. bioRxiv:2026.06.11.731513.

Brenes AJ, Mayer RL, Makar A, et al. (2026) The Single Cell Proteomic blueprint, navigating instrumentation platforms, software tools and high-load libraries in neutrophils, RKO and A549 cells. bioRxiv:2026.06.12.731618

The GMI is part of the Vienna BioCenter, one of the leading international life science research centers worldwide that has established itself as the premier location for life sciences in Central Europe.

viennabiocenter.org