(Vienna, 25 September 2023) MedUni Vienna mourns the death of Univ. Prof. Dr. Gustav Paumgartner, who has passed away at the age of 89. After retiring as Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of Medical Clinic II to Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Paumgartner had remained scientifically active as a Visiting/Honorary Professor at the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Department of Internal Medicine III at the Medical University of Vienna since 2013.
Gustav Paumgartner was born in Neumarkt in Styria in 1933 and received his school education at the Lichtenfels Gymnasium in Graz. A first stay abroad as a young scholarship holder at Princeton University awakened his deep fascination for the biological sciences at a very early age. He went on to study medicine in Graz and Vienna, where he received his doctorate in 1960. He then worked at the Pharmacological Institute with Otto Kraupp and at the Medical Clinic II of the University of Vienna as an assistant and senior physician. A further research stay took him to Carroll Leevy at the New Jersey College of Medicine in the USA, where he discovered the basis for Indocyanine Green (ICG) clearance as a liver function test. From Vienna he went to the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Bern in 1971, where he habilitated in Clinical Pharmacology and Hepatology and was appointed Extraordinarius as well as Vice Director of the Institute. There Paumgartner carried out further groundbreaking work on the current understanding of bile acid secretion. In 1979, he followed a call as full professor of internal medicine and director of the Medical Clinic II at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. After his retirement in 1999, he headed the Ethics Committee of the Medical Faculty of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich until 2010. With his return to Vienna, he continued to be scientifically active as a visiting professor at the Clinical Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the University Department of Internal Medicine III in the Hans Popper Laboratory for Molecular Hepatology since 2013. This completed the cycle of his incredibly productive, over 50-year scientific career, which began and ended in Vienna.
The focus of Gustav Paumgartner's scientific and clinical activities was in the field of bile secretion and its disorders in the context of cholestatic liver diseases. As a "Physician Scientist", it was always a central concern of his to combine basic research and clinical research. In addition to fundamental physiological and pathophysiological findings on the mechanisms of bile secretion and cholestasis, his research was intensively devoted to the role of bile acids as therapeutic agents such as ursodeoxycholic acid for the treatment of gallstone disease and chronic cholestatic liver diseases such as primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). Gustav Paumgartner has always played a leading role in the application of the latest techniques in the research of disease mechanisms and the development of new therapeutic concepts, for example the mass spectrometric analysis of bile acids in liver diseases and the development of shock wave lithotripsy in the conservative treatment of gallstones. His work has been reflected in over 500 scientific publications in the top journals in the field of internal medicine, gastroenterology and hepatology, as well as book contributions and chapters in the leading international textbooks (e.g. Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine). Gustav Paumgartner was one of the first Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Hepatology, who was instrumental in the rise of the now internationally leading liver journal, as well as Associate Editor of Hepatology and European Board Member of the New England Journal of Medicine.
In the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), he served as Secretary General, President and Honorary President. He has received numerous honours and awards for his work, including the EASL Recognition Award 2017 from the European Liver Society. He was also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and an Honorary Member of the American Association of Physicians.
He remained actively involved in hepatology and science beyond his retirement and was always on hand to advise and mentor younger colleagues in the Clinical Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at MedUni Vienna. His visionary and groundbreaking ideas were a great inspiration and motivation for the entire hepatology and gastroenterology research community worldwide. He will always have a special place in the history of hepatology as a researcher and mentor to numerous international careers. He recognised and nurtured a wealth of young talent, and was one of the few full professors who could also be found discussing the posters of the youngest staff members at major international meetings. With his generous and self-contained personality, he had the gift that these stimulating and very in-depth discussions - despite obvious differences in knowledge and experience - were always perceived by the counterpart as "on an equal footing". He was always concerned with content and never with rank or name. Despite his great achievements, his demeanour was always characterised by modesty and humility before life, which was expressed not only in his clinical and scientific activities but also in his love of nature, music and literature. In addition to organising numerous major international meetings in the field of gastroenterology and hepatology, he knew how to combine his warm hospitality with nature and scientific excellence with his summer retreats at his father's Pichlschloss Castle in Neumarkt. "Make a plan and stick to it" was a motto that ran through his work right up to the completion of many a mid-summer (often thunderstorm-prone) mountain tour. In connection with the importance of the serendipity principle in science, he liked to refer to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: "Opportunities are the true muses, they shake us out of reveries and one must certainly thank them".
His colleagues, co-workers, students and friends have lost in Gustav Paumgartner an inspiring researcher, clinician, mentor and teacher and a universally admired, highly esteemed, generous person who was always ahead of his time with his pioneering and forward-looking thoughts and ideas. Our sympathy goes to his family! All of us at the Medical University of Vienna, as well as all his friends and colleagues worldwide, will miss him greatly and remember him with gratitude and honour.
Prof. Dr. Michael Trauner,
Head of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
on behalf of all colleagues