Michael Mahler studied biology at the Universities of Kaiserslautern and Heidelberg (both in Germany). He received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Molecular Genetics at the University of Heidelberg (Germany). During his Ph.D. thesis, Michael Mahler worked at the Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, CA, US) in the laboratory of Prof. Eng Tan. Later on, he worked at different diagnostic companies and is currently Vice President of Research and Development at Inova Diagnostics. His research is focused on the B-cell autoimmune response in autoimmune diseases and the discovery of novel autoantigens. In addition, he works on the development and characterization of novel diagnostic assays for the diagnosis of autoimmune diseases. Michael Mahler has 20 years of experience in the diagnostic industry, authoring more than 300 peer-reviewed journal articles and filing several patents.