Mona Schalk studied Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Vienna and graduated in 2018 with a master thesis on a pharmacobotanic topic focused on species conservation. The aim of the experiments was the development of ex situ conservation strategies for endangered Austrian plants with recalcitrant seeds which cannot be stored in a seed bank.
Due to her interest in the biotechnological cultivation of pharmaceutical drug-producing microorganism reinforced during her experiments at the department of pharmaceutical biotechnology, she pursued an additional master’s degree in Bioprocess Engineering at FH Campus Wien.
In 2020/2021, she completed an internship at the BOKU institute of Animal Cell Technology and Systems Biology on the isolation and characterization of extracellular vesicles from cell culture supernatant.
2021-2024, she was employed at FH Campus Wien initially as technical assistant in the cell culture laboratory, and consecutively as Junior Researcher. In 2024, she completed her second master’s degree. In her thesis, she investigated the influence of concomitant adjuvant therapies on the efficacy of chemotherapeutics on in vitro human cancer cell lines.
In March 2025, she joined the institute of cell and tissue culture technologies’ team as a research assistant.
