As of January 1, 2026, Chrysanthi Skevaki will take over as head of the Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine at the Mainz University Medical Center as well as the W3 professorship for laboratory medicine. Previously, she headed the Giessen site of the Institute of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiochemistry at the University Hospitals of Giessen and Marburg, was a research group leader at the Medical Faculty of the Philipps University of Marburg, where she held a W2 professorship for immunological diagnostics of chronic diseases.

Skevaki succeeds Karl Lackner, who has headed the institute since April 2001 and is now retiring. The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mainz University Medical Center emphasizes the central role of the institute for patient care and expects Skevaki to further develop it by focusing on interdisciplinarity and digitalization. The Scientific Director praises her future-oriented teaching concept and the potential to strengthen the focus on immunology in Mainz.

More than six million analyses are performed annually at the institute, including routine clinical-chemical, haematological and haemostaseological examinations as well as special analyses in areas such as haemostaseology, endocrinology, immunology, drug and trace element analyses, cerebrospinal fluid diagnostics and molecular diagnostics.

Skevaki plans to advance the institute through modern technologies and digitalization to expand its offering in immunology, hematology and personalized medicine. She sees opportunities in the analysis of large amounts of data with artificial intelligence and machine learning for clinical and scientific questions. Sustainability is to be taken into account, and the institute is to be established as a reference laboratory.

In teaching, she wants to strengthen the cross-sectional subject of clinical chemistry and laboratory medicine and motivate students from chemistry and biomedical subjects to pursue careers in clinical chemistry. Her research focuses on exposome-induced immunomodulation in chronic inflammation, taking into account environmental influences such as allergens, viral infections, nanomicroplastics or cigarette smoke. This is intended to create synergies with disciplines such as immunology, dermatology, virology, pediatrics, pulmonology and otolaryngology, supported by structures such as the Research Center for Immunotherapy.

About the person: Chrysanthi Skevaki, born in Athens in 1976, studied human medicine at Semmelweis University in Budapest. She has worked in Greek clinics and research institutions, and received her PhD from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in 2010. As a specialist in medical biopathology, microbiology, virology, infection epidemiology and laboratory medicine, she has been working at the University Hospitals of Giessen and Marburg since 2015. In 2019, she habilitated in Marburg, and in 2025 she earned a Master of Health Business Administration in Erlangen-Nuremberg. She is qualified as a specialist in laboratory medicine in Switzerland and a Department Associate at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Skevaki has received awards such as the Research Award of the German Society of Allergology and Clinical Immunology 2022 as well as fellowships from the European Society of Pneumology and Pediatric Infectious Diseases. She is a reviewer for journals and funding committees, founder of a study group on respiratory viruses at the European Society for Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, as well as a fellow there and active in committees of the European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology.

Editor: X-Press Journalistenbüro GbR

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