Georg Stingl

Dr. Stingl earned his MD from the University of Vienna Medical School in 1973. After his internship and residency training at the department of dermatology of Vienna's University Medical School, he served as a postdoctoral fellow at the dermatology branch of the National Cancer Institute (1977-1978) and as a guest scientist at the laboratory of immunology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (1985-1986) of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD. From 1978 to 1981 he served as a faculty member of the department of dermatology of Innsbruck University Medical School and subsequently moved to Vienna, where he ultimately became professor and chairman of the department of dermatology at the Medical University.

Dr. Stingl's major scientific accomplishments include the discovery of Langerhans cells as immunocytes and their role as targets of physicochemical agents, drugs, and HIV; the first identification of the indigenous T-cell population of rodent skin; the detection of anti-FcεR1 autoantibodies in the sera of patients with chronic urticaria; the use of genetically modified melanoma cells as vaccines for patients with far-advanced disease; the induction of lytic molecules on dendritic cells after stimulation with TLR 7/8 ligands; and the phenotypic characterization of innate lymphoid cells in healthy and diseased skin. In addition, he conducted many clinical trials investigating the safety and efficacy of different immunomodulatory compounds.

His work is documented in 300 original publications, 200 reviews and book chapters, as well as 4 books. Dr. Stingl has appeared as a visiting professor at several medical universities and as invited speaker at many symposia and conferences. He is member of the board of several scientific societies and organizations, advisory panels, scientific journals, and committees.

Dr. Stingl’s accomplishments have been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the William Montagna Award and the Stephen Rothman Award of the Society for Investigative Dermatology and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Skin Association. In 1999, he received an honorary doctorate from the Semmelweis Medical University in Budapest and the Silver Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria. He is an honorary member of the Society for Investigative Dermatology, the European Society for Dermatological Research, and the Japanese Society for Investigative Dermatology. He is also a member of the Austrian and the German academies of sciences as well as having been elected to the National Academy of Medicine of the United States.