Benedikt Warth receives Recognition Award of the Federal State of Lower Austria

On 14 October, the 2025 Science Awards of the Federal State of Lower Austria were presented at Campus Krems by Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner and Deputy Governor Stephan Pernkopf. Since 1964, the province has honoured outstanding researchers whose work contributes to the scientific independence of Lower Austria. The awards recognise scientists whose research drives societal progress and improves quality of life.

Among this year’s awardees is Benedikt Warth, who conducts research and teaches at the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Vienna. He began his scientific career at the Interuniversity Research Institute for Agrobiotechnology (IFA Tulln) of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), where he earned his PhD in food safety and analytical chemistry. During this time, he already focused intensively on mass spectrometry – a key technology that has remained central to his research ever since. After a period as an Erwin Schrödinger Fellow at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, he was appointed to a tenure-track professorship at the Faculty of Chemistry in 2017, where he established the Global Exposomics and Biomonitoring Laboratory at the Institute of Food Chemistry and Toxicology. Since 2022, he is Professor of Food Chemistry and Exposome Research and coordinates Exposome Austria, the national hub of the European research infrastructure EIRENE.

Improving food safety is an important topic at the Faculty of Chemistry' Institute of Food Chemistry and Toxicology.

Benedikt Warth’s research focuses on how chemical environmental exposures shape human health. Through food, products, water, air, indoor environments or their occupation, the average person is exposed to tens of thousands of foreign substances every day. The exposome describes the totality of these chemical influences. The goal of exposome research is to better understand which of these substances increase the risk of chronic diseases, with the ultimate goal of strengthening prevention and public health.

Through his EXPOMET project, funded by the European Research Council (ERC), Warth develops new mass spectrometric methods to systematically identify chemical environmental pollutants and study their role in the development of breast cancer. Optimised workflows – from sample preparation and measurement to data analysis – aim to enable the simultaneous identification of a large number of substances and to reveal how specific exposures or their combinations affect biological processes in the body.

In the summer of 2025, Benedikt Warth was presented with the 'Chemical Research in Toxicology' Young Investigator Award at the American Chemical Society's meeting in Washington, D.C.

“Everyone can relate to this topic and is, in some way, personally affected,” explains Benedikt Warth. “This creates interest in and opportunities for communication about science. It is important to emphasise that we can convey a positive message: in many cases, we are not ‘victims’ of our origins or genes, but can actively promote healthy aging through the exposome. In this way, chemistry as a discipline is transforming from its still occasionally negative image into a vital problem solver.”

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