Michelle Christine Pirstnig holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology with a focus on Anthropology from the University of Vienna and completed a master’s degree in Molecular Biology with a focus on Molecular Medicine in 2025. Her master’s thesis, carried out at the Center for Cancer Research at the Medical University of Vienna, investigated the role of Sprouty proteins in regulating Ras-induced colony formation capacity. She is currently also pursuing a master’s degree in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at FH Technikum Wien. Michelle Pirstnig has been working as a laboratory assistant at the Medical University of Vienna since 2023, where she was involved in the CheckIt drug testing research project.
Michelle joined ICTCT at BOKU University as a Research Assistant in November 2025. In her current work, she investigates how gestational diabetes programs neonatal mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and influences their adipogenic differentiation and the function of MSC-derived adipose tissue. The project focuses in particular on physiological 3D adipogenic differentiation, epigenetic programming, paracrine function, lipid and ganglioside composition, and insulin resistance of MSC-derived adipocytes. Parallel to this, she is completing her master’s thesis at the institute, focusing on the characterization of umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cell extracellular vesicles to assess passage-dependent cellular fitness.
