Thomas Klockgether - Biography#

Thomas Klockgether studied medicine at the University of Göttingen from 1974 to 1980. During this time he started to carry out research related to the pathophysiology of Parkinson´s disease at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen. After graduating in 1980, he went to Oldenburg for clinical training in internal medicine and anaesthesiology. In 1983, he returned to the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen to continue his work in basic research on Parkinson's disease. During this time, he specifically focussed on the role of glutamate receptors in Parkinson´s disease. His findings provided a mechanistic understanding of the action of common antiparkinsonian drugs, such as amantadine.

From 1987 to 1991, he completed his neurology training in Tübingen, where he also began to focus on degenerative ataxias, in addition to pursuing research on Parkinson’s disease. In 1991, he obtained board certification in neurology and was appointed senior physician and lecturer at the University of Tübingen.

In 1998, he was appointed as Professor and Chair of Neurology at the University of Bonn. From 2004 to 2008, he served as section editor of Experimental Neurology. Prof. Klockgether has been the Dean of the Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn from 2008 to 2011. Since February 2010 he has been Speaker of the Center for Rare Diseases Bonn (ZSEB) and since May 2011 Director of Clinical Research at the DZNE.

His current work strongly focusses on natural history, biomarker development and therapy development for degenerative ataxias. He is coordinating several large international collaborative projects in the ataxia field, such as EUROSCA, RISCA, and ESMI. In 2018, he established the Ataxia Global Initiative (AGI), an international platform that promotes the development of therapies for ataxia. Currently, he serves as the speaker of the AGI steering committee.