“Current Topics” Lecture Series by the School of Life Science Engineering—Four Sessions, Four Perspectives

Through the “Current Topics” lecture series, the Biomedical Engineering (Bachelor’s program), Health and Rehabilitation Technology (Master’s program), and Medical Engineering & eHealth (Master’s program) in the Faculty of Life Science Engineering bring experts from the field into the lecture hall. The first sessions covered topics ranging from the world of startups to the nervous system and all the way to the operating room.

The Courage to Launch Version 0.1

Irene Fialka used to work at INiTS and now works as a startup consultant. She showed how the startup landscape has changed and what opportunities this presents today. Using concrete examples from past projects, one message became particularly clear: If you wait until you have the perfect product to enter the market, you’ll be too late. Real-world feedback trumps any assumptions made from an ivory tower.

When Everything Goes Wrong

Christof Götz, founder of the now-defunct startup BrainHero, offered the opposite: an honest “fuck-up” presentation. First, he recounted the brief story of the company’s rise, during which everything went great. Then came the bitter end, and everything that could go wrong did go wrong. After that, he discussed what can be done in such situations and the lessons learned from this experience.

Signals Through the Ear to Relieve Pain

Stefan Kampusch of Aurimod addressed a topic that affects many people: pain. Drug therapies have their limitations and come with side effects, and pain often becomes chronic. The vagus nerve offers one approach. About 80 percent of its fibers are sensory and inform the brain about the body’s condition. It also carries 75 percent of all parasympathetic fibers and can be accessed at the ear. Electrical stimulation at this site positively influences pain perception via the brain—even beyond the duration of treatment. The presentation concluded with a journey through 140 years of vagus nerve stimulation, covering the current state of knowledge and today’s devices.

Between the Operating Room and the Test Bench

Emir Benca presented the University Clinic for Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery at MedUni Vienna. Approximately 2,200 surgeries are performed there each year, including about 800 joint replacements, some of which are robot-assisted using a robotic arm. As a Level A trauma center with its own emergency room, the clinic recorded 690 trauma team activations in 2024 alone. The Adolf Lorenz Lab for Biomechanics is integrated into the clinic. It applies engineering to musculoskeletal disorders: material and structural testing, additive manufacturing of models for complex cases, and image analysis used to create digital 3D models. The challenge here is to strike a balance between image resolution and radiation exposure. Finally, Benca presented hip and knee endoprosthetics as well as osseointegrated prostheses for rehabilitation following amputation.

Together, the four presentations demonstrate just how much lies between an idea and its application: founding a company, failing, and persevering. Sometimes it takes over a century for a technology to reach patients as a medical device. Sometimes it emerges right next to the operating room, where test benches, 3D printing, and image processing become clinical tools. In medical technology, safety and regulation rightly set the bar high. This makes it all the more important to work with prototypes and real users early on and to assess risks realistically. For our students, these were valuable first-hand insights.

Many thanks to Irene Fialka, Christof Götz, Stefan Kampusch, and Emir Benca. To be continued!

The following dates:

Irene Fialka

Christof Götz (right) with program director Johannes Martinek

Stefan Kampusch

Emir Benca