That Professor Martha Eibl became an immunologist was, as so often happens in life, a matter of chance. As a young physician, she wanted to deepen her knowledge in neurology and psychiatry at the New York University of Medicine. To bridge the waiting time for the promised position, she worked in the university’s pathology laboratory. There she met her long-time mentor, the future Nobel laureate Baruj Benaceraff. He so inspired her with immunology that she completed her training under his tutelage and acquired comprehensive knowledge in the field of immunology, at that time a young and relatively unknown science within medicine. This laid the foundation for her scientific career, in which a continuous and lively exchange at the international level played a central role.

After several years in New York, during which her eldest daughter was born in the USA, the physician, originally from Hungary, returned to Vienna and completed her specialist training in internal medicine at the Second Medical University Clinic under the direction of Prof. Dr. Karl Fellinger. He became her esteemed mentor and supported her in turning to clinical immunology. Following this training, she was able to combine scientific and clinical work and was appointed senior physician at the newly founded Institute of Immunology. In 1967, the institute was the first university research institution in the German-speaking world to be dedicated exclusively to immunological research.