Wolfgang Gaebel MD

Wolfgang Gaebel, born in Braunschweig, Germany, is Professor of Psychiatry, Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Heinrich-Heine University, Duesseldorf, and Head of the LVR Klinikum Duesseldorf. Professor Gaebel qualified in medicine at the Free University of Berlin (FUB), Germany, then took up postgraduate training in Neurology at the Department of Neurology at Rudolf-Virchow-Hospital in Berlin and trained in Psychiatry at the Department of Psychiatry at the FUB. After specializing in Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology he continued working as Research Assistant, then Senior Psychiatrist at the Department of Psychiatry at the FUB, at the same time becoming appointed as State Physician for Mentally Handicapped Persons at the Senator for Health and Social Affairs in Berlin. In 1989 he obtained a grant of the German Research Foundation for a Research Stay at the Department of Psychology at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. In 1992 he took up his present position. During his career, Professor Gaebel has held positions as President of the German Society of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Nervous Diseases (DGPPN) in 1995 - 1996 and 2007 - 2008. He was President of the German Society of Biological Psychiatry (DGBP) 1999 - 2002. He was chair of the Organizing Committee of the 11 th World Congress of Psychiatry, Hamburg, 1999. He is Vice President of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany (AWMF), member of the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher LEOPOLDINA, member of several National Ethical Committees, chairman of the WPA Section on Schizophrenia as well as chairman of the WPA Section on Quality Assurance and honorary member of the WPA, and chairman of the Taskforce on Nosology and Psychopathology of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP). In 2009 he was elected Board Member of the European Psychiatric Association (EPA). Since 2009 he is the co-chair of the EPA Section on Schizophrenia, since 2012 he is the coordinator of the EPA Guidance Project. He is President Elect of the EPA and his mandate will start on January 1 2015 and will run for two years. His research focus includes clinical, pharmacological, and neurophysiological aspects of schizophrenia, experimental psychopathology and classification, treatment guidelines and quality management, and research on stigma and discrimination. He is initiator and speaker of several research networks, e.g. the German Research Network on Schizophrenia (GRNS), funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research. In 2007 on behalf of the GRNS Professor Gaebel initiated the 1 st European Conference on Schizophrenia Research (ECSR) in Duesseldorf, co-sponsored by EPA and WPA. Since then the conference takes place in Berlin biannually, the next meeting will be in 2013, September 26-28, jointly organized with the European Scientific Association of Schizophrenia and other psychoses (ESAS), of which Prof. Gaebel is the acting president. His current interest is on the revision of classification towards ICD-11 and DSM-5. He is member of the WHO International Advisory Group for the Revision of ICD-10 Mental and Behavioural Disorders. He is chair of the WHO-Workgroup on Psychosis for ICD-11 and was member of the DSM-5 Psychotic Disorders Workgroup of the American Psychiatric Association. Professor Gaebel has published about 600 scientific articles, he is editor/author of about 40 books/supplements on a range of scientific topics, he is member of the editorial boards of various national/international journals, and is editor in chief of the bilingual journal 'Die Psychiatrie'.