Prof. Dr. Georg Schett

Prof. Dr. Georg Schett graduated from the University of Innsbruck, Austria, in 1994. Following his medical degree, he began his scientific career at the Institute of BioMedical Aging Research in Innsbruck. Two years later, he joined the Department of Medicine at the University of Vienna, where he completed his postgraduate training in Internal Medicine and then specialized in Rheumatology. In 2003, he was promoted to professor of Internal Medicine. Before assuming his current position, Professor Schett spent a year in the United States as a scientist.

Since 2006, Prof. Dr. Schett has been the head of the Department of Medicine 3 — Rheumatology and Immunology at Uniklinikum Erlangen, part of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany. His scientific work encompasses a broad range of clinical and immunological topics, with a particular focus on the molecular underpinnings of immune-inflammatory diseases. Early in his career, he investigated the immunology of atherosclerosis and antibody-mediated endothelial cell damage. His research led to a better understanding of LE-cells in 2007. In 2008, he co-initiated the IMMUNOBONE priority program in Germany, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), aimed at exploring the interactions between skeletal and immune systems. Since 2015, he has led the DFG collaborative research centre 1181 “Checkpoints for Resolution of Inflammation” in Erlangen. He is also the spokesperson for the METARTHROS project, funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, which examines the impact of metabolism on arthritis.

In 2019, Prof. Schett received funding for the ERC-Synergy grant “4D+ nanoSCOPE,” for which he serves as spokesperson. This project focuses on developing tools and techniques for time-resolved imaging and characterization of bone in three spatial dimensions, both in vitro and in vivo. This work aims to monitor bone remodeling and revolutionize the understanding of bone morphology and function. In 2021, he was appointed Vice President for Research at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and became a Leopoldina member of the German National Academy of Sciences. He has published over 1100 peer-reviewed papers and received numerous accolades, including the Carol-Nachman Prize and the 2023 “Funding Prize in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Programme” from the DFG.