(Vienna, 01 April 2026) Robert Öllinger will take up the professorship for surgery with a focus on transplantation (§98) at MedUni Vienna on 1 April 2026. He will also take over as head of the Division of Transplantation at the Department of General Surgery at MedUni Vienna and University Hospital Vienna. Robert Öllinger was most recently Head of Transplant Surgery and the European Metastasis Centre at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. He brings 25 years of expertise in organ transplantation in adults and children to Vienna, as well as proven experience in the resection of complex (liver) tumours and metastases.
The surgeon, who hails from Upper Austria, focuses in particular on minimally invasive, robot-assisted procedures, for example in living organ donation, kidney transplantation and liver surgery. Öllinger is also committed to transparency and education on the subject of organ donation and is active in several national and international organisations and professional associations, including Eurotransplant, the German Medical Association and the German Organ Transplantation Foundation.
At MedUni Vienna, Öllinger and his team will focus on the university's core tasks:
Research
In his research, the transplant surgeon focuses on three topics:
• the interdisciplinary treatment of patients with cancer with the option of a liver transplant ("transplant oncology"),
• the expansion of mechanical perfusion of donor organs with a particular focus on evaluating and improving organ quality, and
• the further development of T-cell therapies as a possible alternative to immunosuppression, which is currently indispensable but has many side effects.
"In transplant medicine, the spectrum of oncological indications is expanding – we want to play an active role in shaping this development in Vienna”, emphasises Öllinger.
Teaching
In teaching, Öllinger focuses on the early integration of students into everyday clinical practice and research. An interdisciplinary elective course on transplantation is to be established and a curriculum for transplant physicians developed.
In specialist training, Öllinger focuses on training young colleagues on the robot console and on targeted fellowships for a new generation of excellent surgeons – the "Vienna School". Interprofessional exchange with nursing staff is also to be strengthened through further training, joint projects and workshops.
Medical care
In terms of medical care, Öllinger wants to focus not only on expanding the transplant programme, establishing paediatric transplantation, and working closely with visceral, vascular, cardiac and thoracic surgery, but also on machine perfusion-assisted "advanced liver surgery", with a particular emphasis on quality of results and interdisciplinarity.
"Transplant medicine is a prime example of teamwork and interdisciplinarity in action, and demands the highest level of performance from patients, doctors, students and nursing staff“, says Öllinger.
About
Robert Öllinger studied medicine at MedUni Innsbruck and obtained his doctorate in 2000. He completed his surgical training at MedUni Innsbruck under the supervision of Raimund Margreiter. This was followed by a research stay at Harvard Medical School in Boston with Fritz Bach in 2002/2003. He completed his specialist training in 2007 and qualified as a professor in 2008.
From 2009 to 2014, Öllinger headed the Transplant and Hepatobiliary Surgery Department at MedUni Innsbruck. In 2014, he completed an MBA in International Hospital Management and then moved to the surgical clinic at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. There, he headed the Transplant Surgery Department, founded the "European Metastasis Centre of the Charité" in 2016 and also took over Sarcoma Surgery in 2020. In 2018, he was appointed Professor of "Special and Reconstructive Visceral Surgery" (W2).
With his experience in transplant surgery, oncological surgery and translational research, Öllinger is one of the most internationally renowned representatives of his field.