Rate My Professor Jeannette Lechner-Scott

Jeannette Lechner-Scott serves as Conjoint Professor in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Newcastle and Senior Staff Specialist in Neurology at John Hunter Hospital, Newcastle, Australia, where she has headed the MS Clinic since February 2004. A graduate of the University of Heidelberg, Germany, with a PhD in Neurophysiology and a Bachelor of Medicine, she completed neurology specialist training in Freiburg, Germany, and Basel, Switzerland, before achieving Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP) in 2003. In 2005, she established the Hunter New England Neuroimmunology Clinic and assumed leadership of the MS research team at the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI), earning international recognition for her contributions to multiple sclerosis research in areas such as cognition, epigenetics, and novel MRI techniques.

With more than 25 years of experience in clinical trials, Professor Lechner-Scott has acted as principal investigator in over 30 national and international trials, including ongoing multicentre studies like CLOBAS on biomarkers for immune reconstitution outcomes and ARTIMS on disease-modifying treatments during artificial reproductive technology in MS. She has secured continuous funding exceeding $10 million over the past decade from industry and public sources for projects including epigenetics of MS progression, EBV-MS effects, and mitochondrial supplements. Her scholarly output includes 314 co-authored articles—248 peer-reviewed papers, 21 reviews, 58 editorials, and one book chapter—garnering 20,629 citations, with 10,954 in the last five years, and collaborations with 320 institutions across 90 countries. Among her accolades are the 2023 Ian McDonald Prize for Excellence in MS Research and the 2024 HMRI Researcher of the Year award. She chairs the MSRA Clinical Trials Network, serves as chief editor of Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders, holds board positions with MS Plus and the Hunter Postgraduate Medical Education Institute, and mentors medical students and junior doctors in research and clinical careers.