Michaela was trained as a political scientist, historian and a sociologist in Vienna, Louvain-la-Neuve, Essex, and Paris. Over the course of her academic career, she has held various positions and conducted research at institutions such as the Centre de Recherche Médecine, Sciences, Santé et Société, the University of Vienna, the Institute of Technology and Society Studies at Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt/Vienna/Graz, the Technical University of Vienna, the Fondation Brocher, and the Medical University of Graz. She also held a Research Fellowship at the Institut für Technik-und Wissenschaftsforschung at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt and at the University of Newcastle. Between 2013 and 2017, she served as a member of the editorial board for the Austrian Journal of Political Science, and she is currently a review editor for Frontiers in Genetics. For more than a decade, she contributed to the implementation of BBMRI-ERIC, where she has served as Interim Director General, scientific (2020) or Head of the ELSI Services & Research (2019-2024). The ELSI department, which included nine specialists and a network of nearly 40 experts across more than 20 Member States, was involved in over 20 active research projects, several of which she led as WP lead. Additionally, she serves as a member of several scientific and ethical advisory boards, ethics advisor and reviewer.
She is currently involved with the Human Genome Austria project at the Medical University of Innsbruck. In 2025, she founded Papillon Pathways, a consultancy that supports organisations with governance challenges in the life sciences sector. Her work centres on connecting research, policy, and real-world application, blending scientific knowledge with strategic advisory services while continuing to develop her own research.
Latest publications:
Mayrhofer MT (2025) How the world of biobanking is changing with artificial intelligence. Front. Digit. Health 7:1626833. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2025.1626833
Mayrhofer, M. T., S. Slokenberga and S. Mežinska (eds) (2025). Artificial Intelligence in Biobanking: Ethical, Legal and Societal Challenges, Taylor & Francis.
Kozlakidis Z, Wootton T and Mayrhofer MT (2026) Through the looking glass: ethical considerations regarding LLM-induced hallucinations to medical questions. Front. Digit. Health 8:1736616. doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2026.1736616
Social Media:
www.linkedin.com/in/michaela-th-mayrhofer
@mtmayrhofer.bsky.social
Navigating Complexity in Europe’s Health Future: An Ethical Perspective
This talk highlights the ethical, legal and societal aspects of Humangenom Austria, a national project that aims to establish a shared infrastructure across the country. It builds on the particular strengths and needs of each participating partner. As a federated state with excellent genomics centers and medical universities, Austria is well positioned with its progressive research law to operate at the intersection of research and care. At the same time, the Austrian Gene Technology Act was last amended in 1998, and is thus not up to today’s regulatory needs and expectations of both patients and the medical profession. Moreover, policymakers tread carefully with regard to genetics and genomics. In addition, the general population tends to be critical of science, as demonstrated by surveys on COVID and public trust. In relation to genomics, however, a data gap limits our ability to understand the reasons why, especially as pharmacogenomic tests become more and more popular, are often privately paid and not scrutinized as much as they are within the public health care system. In conclusion, this presentation discusses how these challenges are being navigated through governance and innovative research and engagement practices in the context of the Humangenom Austria project.