Michael Trauner, MD, received his medical education at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz, Austria, where he also completed his clinical training in internal medicine and gastroenterology / hepatology. From 1994 to 1997 he postdoctoral research fellow at Yale University's Department of Internal Medicine and Liver Center in New Haven, USA. After returning to Graz, he established an internationally recognized research group in cholestatic and fatty liver diseases, and founded the Liver Center, serving as professor of experimental and clinical hepatology from 2005-2010. Since 2010 he has been professor of gastroenterology and hepatology and chair of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Medical University of Vienna. Dr. Trauner's main research interests are the molecular mechanisms of bile acid transport and signaling in cholestatic and steatotic liver diseases, the mechanisms of cell injury in cholestatic and steatotic liver disease, and the development of novel pharmacologic treatments for cholestatic and steatotic liver diseases.