Carina Hromada among the ‘Top 35 under 35’ of the Brigitte Bierlein Women’s Award 2025 FHTW researcher honoured for her work on artificial nerve transplants

Carina Hromada, lecturer/researcher at the Department of Life Science Engineering, was nominated last year for the Brigitte Bierlein Women’s Award 2025 by the Federal Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism for her work as head of the ArtNerve project at the UAS Technikum Wien, and was thus selected as one of the ‘Top 35 under 35’ from over 100 applications. The Brigitte Bierlein Women’s Award honours successful women under the age of 35 for their outstanding innovative or entrepreneurial achievements.

Hope for peripheral nerve injuries

With ArtNerve, Carina Hromada is developing artificial nerve grafts to revolutionise the treatment and healing of peripheral nerve injuries and give those affected hope for an improved quality of life. This involves the use of tissue engineering methods, in which special cells are embedded in a biocompatible gel and then mechanically stimulated in a bioreactor specially developed at the FHTW, resulting in the formation of nerve pathways that enable the severed nerve to heal.

Award ceremony at the Federal Chancellery

The award ceremony took place on 24 November 2025 at the Federal Chancellery, where the prize was ceremoniously presented to the final winners by Elisabeth Zehetner, State Secretary for Energy, Start-ups and Tourism, and Maria Rauch-Kallat.

The ArtNerve project is funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) as part of a spin-off fellowship. The aim is to lay the foundation for a possible future start-up based on the research results.

Congratulations to Carina Hromada and all the other nominees and winners for this valuable recognition, which highlights the enormous potential of young women in Austria.

Copyright group photo: BKA/Florian Schroetter