Claus Volko

Claus Volko (born 8 October 1983) is an Austrian computer and medical scientist. He is known for his works on endocrinology, immunology, oncology, and psychiatry, which culminated in the concept of a novel research programme which he called "symbiont conversion".

Life

Volko was born and raised in Vienna, Austria. He became acquainted with the philosophy of Sir Karl Popper at an early age, which sparked his interest in metaphysics, epistemology and science. At the age of eight he began to teach himself computer programming and at the age of twelve he wrote the programming course "The Real Adok's Way to QBASIC", which is still considered a standard work on the QBasic programming language in the German-speaking countries. He contributed to the PC-Heimwerker magazine and became one of two main editors of the Hugi Magazine in 1996. In 1998 he became the only main editor. He kept editing the Hugi Magazine until 2014. In 2001 he began his studies at university, which he completed in 2013 with degrees in medicine, medical informatics and computational intelligence. Afterwards he worked in the research groups of Drs. Matthias Samwald and Uwe Rohr while earning his living as a software engineer.

Scientific Achievements

With Dr. Matthias Samwald, Volko worked on the FindMeEvidence project, which was about a search engine for medical purposes. In the group of Dr. Uwe Rohr, Volko investigated the working mechanism of the effects of phytoestrogens in the treatment of severe mental diseases, infectious diseases and cancer. The researchers found evidence that isoflavones alter the steroidal hormone cascade and convert stress hormones into immunity hormones. Rohr hypothesized that the oncolytic effect was mediated by conversion of tumor cells into functional tissue, thus fulfilling the "modify and repair" paradigm coined by faculty members of Harvard Medical School. Volko generalized this paradigm and coined the term "symbiont conversion" for any procedure that converts parasitic cells into symbionts. He suggested that also research should be done on how to convert pathogenic bacteria to cells exhibiting symbiotic behavior.

Publications

• Symbiont Conversion Theory (2018)
• Model approach for stress induced steroidal hormone cascade changes in severe mental diseases (2016)
• The evolution of genomic stability to a mechanism in reproduction and psychiatry (2016)
• Can Plants’ Ability for DNA Repair and Stress Defense be Used against Patients’ Circulating Tumor Cells? (2015)
• Paradigmenwechsel in der Krebstherapie (2015)
• Werden Großmütter die besseren Mütter? Die gesellschaftlichen Folgen der Pille (2015)
• Improving the Quality and Findability of Open Medical Information on the Web: Medical Wikidata and the FindMeEvidence Search Engine (2014)
• Enzyklopädie der Diskmags (2012)
• Physik verstehen - Zusammenhänge erkennen statt auswendig lernen (2002)
• The Real Adok's Way to QBASIC (1996)