Dirk Schadendorf is the Director of the Department of Dermatology and the West German Cancer Center (WTZ) at the University Hospital Essen.
He attended Medical School at the University Hospital, Hamburg, and has been licensed to practice medicine since 1986. Subsequently, Professor Schadendorf went to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, USA for 2 years where he obtained post-doc training in Tumour Immunology by Dr. Lloyd Old.
During his 6 years at the Department of Dermatology at University Hospital Rudolf Virchow in Berlin, he received his residency training and board certification in Dermatology and Venerology to become Assistant Professor for Dermatology in 1994. After receiving the prestigious DFG- Heisenberg Scholarship, he was appointed as Associate Professor for Dermato-Oncology at Mannheim University Hospital, Medical Faculty of the University of Heidelberg, and Head of the Skin Cancer Unit at the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg.
In his current role as the Director of the Department of Dermatology (since 2008) and the West German Cancer Center (WTZ) (since 2013) at University Hospital Essen, Professor Schadendorf is currently involved in more than 30 clinical studies. He is the current president of the German DeCOG (Dermatologic Cooperative Oncology Group) and chair-elect of the well known EORTC Melanoma Group. He has a strong focus on translational research and has published more than 400 peerreviewed papers.