Walter Gunzburg

Walter Gunzburg is the co-founder, Chairman of the Board and Chief Technical Officer of Austrianova.

As well as being a full Professor of Virology at the University of Vienna since 1996, he has had many years of experience in the biotech industry. He was a scientific advisor to the international vaccine company, Bavarian Nordic, from 1994-2001and was involved in their IPO. He has also been an scientific advisor to the German biotech companies, Paktis and Liponova, as well as the U.S. biotech company, Tocagen Inc., all of which developed/are developing advanced medicinal treatments for cancer.

He was also the Director of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Gene Therapeutic Vector Development from 2003-2011. Currently, he is a board member of ViruSure, a virus and prion testing company located in Vienna that he cofounded.

Gunzburg has been actively involved in European ethics and regulatory affairs in the fields of cell and gene therapy as well as xenotransplantation for many years. He was a member of the German Medical Association’s Central Commission for Somatic Gene Therapy.

He has also interacted with a number of regulatory agencies including the US FDA, EMA, TGA, HSA and Thai-FDA and was on the review panel for the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Langen, Germany.

Gunzburg continues to be an active researcher and has published more than 130 peer-reviewed publications in international scientific and medical journals such as Nature, The Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA and Cancer Research as well as co-authoring the first German language textbook on gene therapy.

He is also a member of the editorial board of a number of international cell and gene therapy journals including Trends in Molecular Medicine, and continues to be an active reviewer for many top tier journals as well as grant funding agencies.

Education

• Habilitation Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München
• Doctor of Philosophy - PhD Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) (1981 — 1984)
• Bachelor's degree University of Birmingham (1977 — 1980)

Companies

• Chairman and CTO Austrianova (2009)
• Co-Founder and CTO Austrianova (2007)
• Head of Institute of Virology Vetmeduni Vienna (1996)
• Council Member EA European Academy of Technology and Innovation Assessment GmbH (1993)
• Co-Founder and Board Member ViruSure GmbH (2005 — 2019)
• Director Christian Doppler Forschungsgesellschaft (2003 — 2011)
• Adjunct Professor National University of Singapore (2008 — 2010)
• Member Bundesärztekammer (1997 — 2008)
• Head of Department of Pathobiology Vetmeduni Vienna (2004 — 2005)