Prof. Dr. med. Christoph Kleinschnitz
Christoph Kleinschnitz, born in 1973, is an experimental neuroscientist and clinical consultant of
neurology. He studied human medicine at the Julius Maximilians University in Würzburg, Germany
where he received his MD title in 2001. He finished his training as a neurologist in 2007.
In 2011 he was appointed Full Professor of Neurology and Stroke Medicine at the University of Würzburg, Germany. He now works as an attending physician ("Geschäfsführender Oberarzt") in the Department of Neurology, University Hospital Würzburg where he runs the Stroke Unit.
As a complementary focus aside his
clinical activity, he deals with innovative translational approaches in stroke therapy. Here,
Dr. Kleinschnitz has particularly investigated the role of platelets and plasmatic coagulation in
thrombus formation and stroke development. Other scientific fields of interests comprise the
blood-brain-barrier and molecular mechanisms of brain edema formation as well as the role of
inflammatory processes and free radicals in stroke pathophysiology. Dr. Kleinschnitz serves as an editor
for PLoS One and Stroke and together with Wolf-Rüdiger Schäbitz, Germany has
founded the first Open Access journal in the field of translational stroke research, Experimental &
Translational Stroke Medicine (www.etsmjournal.com).
In 2008 he was awarded "Germany's Young Scientist of the Year" and in 2011 he received the Heinrich-Pette-Award from the German Neurological Society.
Prof. Dr. med. Ralf Linker
Ralf Linker studied human medicine in Freiburg/Breisgau, Berlin and St. Louis,
Missouri. After a molecular-biological doctoral thesis at the Institute of Biochemistry,
University of Freiburg, he worked as resident physician at the University of Würzburg,
Department of Neurology (Prof Toyka) as well as in Göttingen (Prof Bähr) and at the
Ruhr-University of Bochum, Department of Psychiatry (Prof Juckel). From 2007 to 2010 he worked
as senior physician at the St. Josef Hospital, Ruhr University in Bochum (Director: Prof Gold),
where he was head of the neurological research laboratory. Since September 2010, he is head of
the Neuroimmunology Section and Attending Physican at the Department of Neurology, University
Hospital Erlangen. His interests focus on multiple sclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases,
particularly in the field of experimental models. The emphasis is on examining mechanisms of
neurodegeneration and neuroprotection as well as research on mechanisms of action of established
immune therapies and novel ways of treatment in the translational approach. In 2002, Ralf Linker
was awarded the Sobek-Stiftung young researchers' prize as well as in 2005, the Helmut-Bauer
young researchers' prize for MS research.
Prof. Dr. med. Dr. rer. nat. Sven G. Meuth
Sven Meuth studied human medicine and neurobiology at the Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg, Germany
and received his PhD titles in 2005 (Dr. med.) and 2007 (Dr. rer. nat.) at the associated Institute of
Physiology. In 2004 he switched to the Neurological University Würzburg, where he started his
neurology education under the supervision of Prof. K. Toyka. Since 2010 he is appointed as full professor at the
Clinic of Neurology (inflammatory disorders of the nervous system and neuroonkology; Prof. Wiendl) and in parallel
affiliated to the Institute of Physiology (neuropathophysiology; Prof. Pape) in Münster. His
scientific interests comprise the investigation of autoimmune inflammation and neurodegeneration (focus: ion channels)
in animal models of multiple sclerosis. For his scientific work on the functional expression of ion channels on T cells,
he received the Helmut-Bauer-Award from the University of Göttingen (2009) and the Sobek-Young-Investigator-Award
(2010).
