Heike Rittner is clinician scientist and a professor at the Center of Interdisciplinary Pain Medicine at the University Hospital of Wuerzburg. She obtained her medical degree from the Universities of Vienna/Austria and Wuerzburg/Germany. After a postdoc at the Mayo clinic, she completed her residency at the Charité, Berlin, and was board-certified in Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine. Since 2021, she heads the Center of Interdisciplinary Pain Medicine at the University of Wuerzburg with an acute pain service as well as ambulatory, outpatient, and in-patient pain treatment.
In parallel to her clinical work, she pursued her scientific career in understanding inflammatory and neuropathic pain generation and resolution in the peripheral nervous system. She has published over 100 papers in peer-revied journals and receives funds from German and European Funding agencies. Currently, she is the scientific coordinator of the German Research Foundation-funded Clinical Research Group KFO5001 “ResolvePAIN” as well as several healthcare studies.