Mission of the Cori Institute in Graz
The rapid development of enormously efficient analytical and visual methods for studying biological “systems” (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, high-resolution microscopy), the discovery of groundbreaking new genetic engineering processes (e.g., CRISPR/Cas9) as well as the enormous advances in the fields of data management, modeling and simulation allow a completely new approach to understanding biological processes and the development, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases.
To take advantage of this opportunity, traditional models of academic research in individual research groups must be replaced by new, interdisciplinary teams that are able to collect experimental and clinical datasets, to interconnect them and to transform them into rational models. The new knowledge gained in this way enables a deeper understanding of dynamic biological, physiological and pathological processes and forms the basis for the development of new medicines and medical technologies. The Cori Institute of Molecular and Computational Metabolism of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) in Graz will follow these new paths of innovation.
Scientists from computer science, mathematics, biology, chemistry, medicine and engineering will dedicate themselves to biomedical research at the highest scientific level in a creative, interactive and high-risk manner, thus enabling the development of new drugs and medical technologies.
Gerty Theresa and Carl Ferdinand Cori
The name of the Cori Institute in Graz was chosen in honor of the married couple Gerty Theresa and Carl Ferdinand Cori, who are considered icons of metabolic research and were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1947. Gerty Theresa and Carl Ferdinand Cori were born in Prague in 1896. After studying medicine, they worked both clinically and scientifically in Vienna and Graz. The couple emigrated to the USA in 1922.
More about Gerty und Carl Cori
More about Gerty und Carl Cori
Gerty and Carl Cori came from old Austrian entrepreneurial and scholarly families. Both were born in Prague in 1896 and studied medicine in Prague. They married in 1920 and then worked both clinically and scientifically in Vienna. In 1921, Carl Cori accepted an offer from Otto Loewi to work as an assistant at the Pharmacological Institute of the University of Graz. During his time in Graz, “...the idea of the absorption and the fate of sugar in the animal body...” arose, as Carl Cori later wrote.
The Coris left Austria in 1922 and worked at the State Institute for the Study of Malignant Diseases (now Roswell Park Cancer Institute) in Buffalo, New York and from 1931 at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. His wife Gerty was either not allowed to work with Carl at all or only as a poorly paid assistant. She did not receive an academic position as an associate professor until 1943, and she became a professor in the year the Nobel Prize was awarded.
The Cori Laboratory in St. Louis had a tremendous impact on the development of life sciences in the USA and became a hotbed for talent. Six of Gerty and Carl Cori’s students were later awarded the Nobel Prize.