Professor Matthias Schneider is Head of Rheumatology at Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he has been a professor since 1994. He received his MD after training at the Westphalian-Wilhelms-University in Münster, Germany. He has qualifications in internal medicine, rheumatology, physical therapy and endocrinology. Professor Schneider is Past-President of the European Lupus Society. From 1999 to 2003 he was Co-Chairman of the ACR Committee ‘Lupus Response’. He has also served as Chairman of the German Cooperation Multipurpose Arthritis Centres (2002–2010), President and board member of the German Society of Rheumatology (since 2005), and as a committee member for ‘The (European League Against Rheumatism) EULAR Lupus Guideline’ (since 2005) and DORIS. He is also Head of the Advisory Panel and Medical Advisor to LUPUS EUROPE. Professor Schneider’s main research interests are SLE, rheumatology and rheumatic diseases. He has a particular interest in early diagnosis, and the validity of different imaging techniques for identifying and monitoring disease, especially from the patient’s perspective. He has published over 400 papers on rheumatology.