Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA

PhD student, microbial ecologist, drought, permafrost, global warming 🦠🧪🌍🌡nature, history, horses 🏞📜🐴

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

@GrGuenter Medical gaslighting von Frauen ist leider viel zu verbreitet. Frauen sind nie körperlich krank. Sie sind immer nur hysterisch bzw. psychisch krank / depressiv 😓 /s

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

Such a great evening at the LongNightofResearch! 😃 I really enjoyed my first public science communication event! Showing the importance of soils, its animals, and the carbon cycle. Hopefully sparked some interest and made clear that soil is no dirt.

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

On this day my thoughts are with all people suffering from Long Covid, ME/CFS and other chronic diseases who, on top of being incomprehensibly ill, constantly face medical gaslighting, societal denial and bureaucratic barriers. Are you healthy? Be grateful!

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

This looks really cool! 🤩

[Bo Wang @BoWang87]

This is really cool (and wild):

Scientists simulated a complete living cell for the first time. Every molecule, every reaction, from DNA replication to cell division.

The paper (Luthey-Schulten et al., Cell 2026, https://t.co/PXxXWKC8yp), just out today, used JCVI-Syn3A — a synthetic minimal bacterium with fewer than 500 genes. A 3D+time simulation of the full 105-minute cell cycle: DNA replication, protein translation, metabolism, division. Every gene, protein, RNA, and chemical reaction tracked through physical space.

It took years to build. Multiple GPUs. Six days of compute time per run.

And this is the simplest possible cell.

A human cell has ~20,000 genes. It lives in tissue. It interacts with neighbors. It differentiates. It responds to drugs in ways that depend on context we haven't fully measured.

Mechanistic simulation of the minimal cell costs 6 GPU-days for 105 minutes of biology. You cannot scale that to human cells. The complexity isn't 40x harder. It's exponentially harder.

This is why the field pivoted to data-driven models. You can't hand-encode the regulatory wiring of a human hepatocyte. But you can learn it — if you have the right perturbation data collected across enough diverse biological contexts.

The two approaches aren't competing. Papers like this generate the ground truth that future ML models need for validation. But the path to a clinically useful virtual cell runs through foundation models, not through scaling up mechanistic simulation.

Amazing work!

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

This is so cool to watch! 😍

[National Geographic @NatGeo]

This video of cornflower root hairs, captured by Wim van Egmond, shows the single-cell extensions on the cornflower's roots. See more from the microscopic world: https://t.co/eRf7emsfWN

[Boersenhaendler @Boersenhaendler]

Letztes Jahr hat man mir folgendes geschrieben zu Weihnachten und besser kann man es kaum formulieren

Hiroyuki Sanada sagte einmal: "Es gibt diejenigen, die sich einen Pool in ihrem Haus wünschen, während diejenigen, die einen haben, ihn kaum nutzen.
Diejenigen, die einen geliebten Menschen verloren haben, vermissen ihn zutiefst, während andere, die ihn in der Nähe haben, sich oft über ihn beschweren.
Wer keinen Partner hat, sehnt sich danach, aber wer einen hat, schätzt ihn oft nicht.
Wer Hunger hat, würde alles für einen Teller Essen geben, während wer genug hat, sich über den Geschmack beschwert.
Wer kein Auto hat, träumt davon, während wer es hat, immer ein besseres sucht."
Der Schlüssel ist, dankbar zu sein, innezuhalten, um zu sehen, was wir besitzen und zu verstehen, dass irgendwo jemand alles geben würde, für das, was du bereits hast und nicht zu schätzen weißt. (H.S.)
In diesem Sinne wünsche ich Euch allen einen schöne & friedliche Weihnachten.

[António Guterres @antonioguterres]

The hard truth is that the world has failed to ensure global warming remains below 1.5°C.

We need a paradigm shift to limit a temporary overshoot’s magnitude & duration & quickly drive it down.

#COP30

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

@mrillig I have asked myself the same thing a while ago! I think there must be life, life always finds a way! Maybe similar to groundwater? I am very curious what might be living below our cities and how life there copes with the limitations.

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

Some behind the scenes from our sampling in Canada 🇨🇦

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

Now also available in English! https://t.co/Yo7Xa7syUr

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

I am so happy and grateful I had the opportunity to join a fantastic project and team this summer to study the effects of warming on soil microbial activity in Yukon 🦠🇨🇦
Info on project:
https://t.co/DXJLbRiLgI
& field trip:
https://t.co/s722X9BFBF https://t.co/VTPx3FQsIw

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

@Riemerville The most important thing is REST!
Even if you think you can unload the dishwasher because you feel better - no you can not! And this can last for weeks or months. Do everything at least at half the speed that you would usually do it and make breaks before(!) you feel exhausted.

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

I am very happy and honored to be among the recipients of the Austrian Microbiome Research Awards 2025. A big thank you to the committee for recognizing my work and to the CoE for initiating the Awards to highlight microbiome research in Austria.

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

Wow! Gefährliche Gewitterzelle über Stadlau, Wien, gerade eben. Hoffen wir es zieht weiter 🙏

[Mohan Pargaien IFS🇮🇳 @pargaien]

Nearly 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction.
Let's protect and restore nature, its amazing biodiversity, and our future. #BiodiversityDay
#BiodiversityDay2025

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

Can't believe it has been 1 year already! 😯 time flies so fast!

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

Today, I successfully defended my Master Thesis 🎓 @TER_Vienna
I cannot realize it yet; it's like a dream; but I feel very lucky and proud and I am very much looking forward to the next step (...PhD 😮)

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

Spent a great day sampling in the Alps 🏞 to kick-off a new Masters students thesis project looking for drought legacy effects 👀🦠

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

@ThomasWalach Ich war von 2004-2008 in einem BORGymn. Unterstufe in Wien. Schon damals wurden mir Chancen genommen, da 90% Nicht-Deutsche-Mutterspr. Als Österreicher wurde man geächtet. Ich will gar nicht wissen wie es heute dort oder in Mittelschulen ist. Ich bin in die Privat-S geflüchtet..

[Conny Rottensteiner, MSc BA @Cornelia_R]

@TheBenRatch @volcaholic1 To my knowledge; depends were you live. Water is often transported to upper stories via pumps; pumps need electricity...

[Nico Valiente @nicvaliente]

Se buscan candidatas/os para solicitar un contrato FPU 2024 en @idr_uclm @uclm_es ⤵️:

La persona candidata desarrollará su tesis doctoral en los campos de la biología molecular, bioinformática y limnología 🦠

📅 31 de enero de 2025

Más información en https://t.co/3hgsjUlZI2