Rate My Professor Jörg Menche

Jörg Menche, Univ.-Prof. Dipl.-Phys. Dr., serves as full professor in the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Vienna, with a joint appointment at the Center for Molecular Biology in the Max Perutz Labs. He is also Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Network Medicine and Adjunct Principal Investigator at the CeMM Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Trained as a physicist, Menche obtained his Diploma in Physics from the University of Leipzig in 2005 and his PhD in theoretical physics from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces and the University of Potsdam in 2010, earning summa cum laude distinction for his thesis on “Activity Patterns on Networks” under Reinhard Lipowsky. His postdoctoral training included positions at Northeastern University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, in Boston (2010-2012), and as a postdoctoral fellow with Albert-László Barabási at Central European University in Budapest (2013-2015). In 2015, he established his independent laboratory as Principal Investigator at CeMM in Vienna, transitioning to his current university positions in 2020.

Menche’s research focuses on network medicine and computational biology, leveraging complex network theory to investigate biological systems. His group explores interactome-based approaches to rare diseases, multilayer networks for time- and tissue-specific developmental and aging processes, ubiquitin E3 ligases in cancer, radiomics for clinical applications in liver disease, and genomic stability mechanisms. With over 75 peer-reviewed publications, notable recent contributions include “Guardian ubiquitin E3 ligases target cancer-associated APOBEC3 deaminases for degradation to promote human genome integrity” (Nature Communications, 2026), “Radiomics-Based Assessment of Portal Hypertension Severity and Risk Stratification of Cirrhotic Patients Using Routine CT Scans” (Liver International, 2026), and “A multilayer network approach elucidates time- and tissue-specific developmental and aging processes” (bioRxiv, 2025). He led the FWF-funded project “Network Medicine - An interactome-based approach to rare diseases” (2016-2024). Menche has received several awards, including the 2019 Falling Walls Lab Austria competition victory (with Julia Pazmandi), Future Innovator recognition at the Ars Electronica Festival 2019, full membership in the Wolfgang Pauli Institute since 2019, and the 2010 best PhD thesis award from the Association of Friends of Colloids and Interface Research.