Prof. Dr. med. Arno Schmidt-Trucksäss

Director of studies and Senior consultant

Arno Schmidt-Trucksäss is the Head of the Division Rehabilitative and Regenerative Sports Medicine at the Department of Sport, Exercise and Health, University of Basel. He holds national board certification in Internal Medicine and Sports Medicine. His research focus is the evaluation of physical fitness and its importance to health.

Prof. Schmidt-Trucksäss sees the characterisation of healthy human organisms in the process of ageing as essential for the early detection and differentiation of heart and lung disease. This characterisation is required to practise personalized medicine, as well as, to apply sport and exercise as a medication.

Jonathan Wagner, MSc

Jonathan Wagner studied at the University of Basel from 2012 - 2015 and graduated with a BSc in Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences. He earned his master's degree in Exercise Physiology at Loughborough University in England. Currently he is working as a research assistant in the Division for Rehabilitative and Regenerative Sports Medicine and is doing his PhD research in ‘Advanced cardiopulmonary exercise testing in health and heart disease, and aging phenotypes’.
Jonathan Wagner is firmly convinced of the potential of cardiopulmonary exercise testing to diagnose heart and lung disease and is highly dedicated to further develop this method.

Raphael Knaier, PhD

Raphael Knaier completed his Bachelor (BA) in Sport Science/ Public Health at the University of Bremen, Germany and his master's degree in Sport Science: Diagnostic and Intervention at the University of Leipzig, Germany. After that, he was appointed as a research assistant and PhD candidate at the University of Basel in the Division for Rehabilitative and Regenerative Sport Medicine. As part of his PhD he carried out numerous cardiopulmonary exercise tests in elite athletes as well as in clinical populations. Raphael Knaier is looking forward to bringing his experience to the COmPLETE-Project and to carrying out research to further develop this promising method together with his team and partners.

PD. Dr. med Timo Hinrichs

Associate Professor Dr. med. Timo Hinrichs is Deputy Head of the Division Rehabilitative and Regenerative Sports Medicine and senior physician of the Sports Medicine Outpatient Clinic at the Department of Sport, Exercise and Health, University of Basel. He holds national board certification in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation and in Sports Medicine. His research focus is on age and ageing with special interests in the age-related decline of physical function and mobility; the relationship between multimorbidity, functioning and the environment; methods of assessment of functional status; the benefits of physical activity and structured exercise; and the implementation of mobility assessments and physical activity programs for older adults in primary health care.

Gilles Nève, MSc

Gilles Nève works as a PhD student and research assistant on the COmPLETE project in the Department of Rehabilitative and Regenerative Sports Medicine. He is a graduate of the Sports Science program at the University of Basel, where he studied between 2012 and 2018.
Nève has already gained experience in research thanks to a collaboration between the University of Basel and a university in the USA in 2015, and he is writing his dissertation on:  Aging, physical activity and vascular properties in healthy individuals and patients with heart failure.
His research focus is on vascular health, in particular pulse wave velocity and endothelial function throughout life. These parameters have a very high importance for the prediction of cardiovascular diseases.

Dr. Denis Infanger

Denis Infanger was awarded a Master of Science in Ecology in 2008 from the University of Basel. He holds a PhD in epidemiology which he earned in 2012 from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) at the University of Basel. After his graduate studies, he worked as a research associate and statistician in research and the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr. med. Karsten Königstein

Resident physician

Dr. med. Christopher Klenk

Resident physician

Justin Carrard

Justin Carrard studied Medicine at the Universities of Neuchâtel, Hannover, and Lausanne, where he graduated with a BSc and a MSc in Human Medicine. He earned his doctor title (MD) at the University of Lausanne working on Modelling Training Adaptation within swimmers. Justin serves as an Associate Editor for the British Medical Journal Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, as a board member of Sport & Exercise Medicine Switzerland (SEMS) and as the president-founder of Junior SEMS. Through these positions, he aims to raise awareness about the power of exercise to prevent and treat disease and injury.
Together with Dr. Julijana Ivanisevic and Dr. Hector Gallart-Ayala (Metabolomics Unit, University of Lausanne), he is profiling the metabolome  and lipidome of the COmPLETE Health and Heart cohorts in order to unravel the determinants of healthy ageing and active living.

Fabian Schwendinger, MSc

After Fabian Schwendinger successfully completed his Master's in Exercise Physiology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, he joined the COmPLETE team as a PhD student in August 2020. His main research focus lies in examining the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on physiological health markers and objectively measured physical activity.