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Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art to Hannes Stockinger The Austrian Society for Allergology and Immunology (Österreichische Gesellschaft für Allergologie und Immunologie – ÖGAI) congratulates Hannes Stockinger for having received the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art on November 7, 2018. He joined ÖGAI as member in 1983, hardly missed any of the annual meetings, was Vice Secretary (1992-1994), Secretary General (1994-1996), President-elect (2000-2002), President (2002-2004) Past-President (2004-2006), Chairman of the Expert Committee Immunological Education and Continuing Education (2004-present). As President together with his Secretary Gerhard Zlabinger he built up a modern homepage that is still the basis of today’s ÖGAI homepage, initiated the current ÖGAI logo, the medical specializa-tion for immunology in Europe, public awareness and the contact to laypeople support groups, in particular for allergy. He is also very active in ÖGAI-associated societies: he was Treasurer of the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS; 2006-2015), he is the designated chairperson of the Gender Equality and Career Development Committee of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS), and since 2010 he has been the President of the Federation of Austrian Scientific Societies, the umbrella organization of Austrian scientific societies, whose 160 member societies comprise approximately 30,000 individual scientists. In 1985 the ÖGAI established the Thesis Prize with Hannes Stockinger and Guido Krömer as first awardees of this Prize. In 1990 he received the Pirquet-Prize and in 1991 the Karl-Landsteiner-Prize. As representative of the ÖGAI he is co-organizing the biannual TATRA Immunology Conference. As EFIS Treasurer he initiated many public awareness projects and programs to support young immunologists, for instance the foundation of the South Eastern European Immunology School that was held recently the 10th time. Hannes Stockinger is the Head of the Research Center for Pathophysiology, Infectiology and Immunology at the Medical University of Vienna (2010-present) and Chairman of one of the Center’s subunit, the Institute for Hygiene and Applied Immunology (2009-present), where he is appointed as well as a full professor for molecular immunology (2004-present). The Center is with 300 employees (about 200 payed by third-party funds with a mix 75%/25% public/industry) one of the largest translational research facilities of the Medical University of Vienna. As first Dean of the PhD program he built up at this University one of the most successful PhD schools (2003-2010) and he continues to further develop this school as Chairman of the Committee of the Senate of the Medical University of Vienna for the PhD programs (2010-present). He also co-founded and managed as CEO the biotech-SME Competence Center for Biomolecular Therapeutics (BMT) that aimed together with Novartis, Baxter and the SMEs Technoclone and Polymun to identify and develop targets for therapeutic treatment of immunological and inflammatory diseases (2002-2012). Hannes Stockinger has been identifying and characterizing the structure and function of a number of surface receptors on T cells and myeloid cells by monoclonal antibodies, the latter have been distributed to the community and used by health care centers, doctors and researchers for the diagnosis and therapy of immunological diseases and leukemias for decades up to now. Therefore, he is also member of the Cluster of Differentiation (CD) Nomenclature Council. His contribution to the understanding of how GPI-anchored receptor proteins transduce signals across the plasma membrane were fundamental for the identification and characterization of lipid rafts, membrane devices that are now recognized to control signaling across the plasma membrane. The understanding of the function of these lipid entities in the plasma membrane is instrumental for the therapeutic usage of lipid modifying medications such as statins and omega-3-fatty-acids. Currently, he is focusing on the development of: 1) 3G nanodevices to specifically transport drugs and factors to pathologic cells in immunological diseases, 2) novel assays for the diagnosis of bacterial infections and 3) advanced imaging to analyze the dynamic of receptors and signaling molecules in the immunological synapse with the aim to obtain novel insight into the initiation and control of the immune response and thereby to identify nanostructure-markers and targets for precision medicine. During his scientific carrier he published nearly 200 scientific papers including a variety of original papers in the very top journals such as Cell, Science, Nature Methods, Nature Immunology, Science Signaling, the Journal of Experimental Medicine that count for nearly 10,000 citations and an h-factor of more than 50.