Felix Eckstein

Felix Eckstein, MD, is Research Professor and Head of the Research Program for Musculoskeletal
Imaging at Paracelsus Medical University (PMU), Salzburg, Austria, and founder and Chief Medical
Officer (CMO) of Chondrometrics GmbH, Germany.
He studied medicine at the Universities of Freiburg and Heidelberg, graduating in 1991, with
additional training in Bristol and Innsbruck. He began researching quantitative MRI of articular
cartilage at Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, in 1993 and completed his habilitation in anatomy
in 1997. From 2004-2019, he served as Director of the Institute of Anatomy at PMU, before assuming
his current research professorship. From 2014-2019 he was Dean of Medicine and translated the
curriculum in Salzburg to the new second site of PMU in Nuremberg, Germany.
His current research focuses on quantitative imaging of articular tissues and the development,
standardization, and qualification of imaging biomarkers for clinical trials of disease-modifying
osteoarthritis therapies. His work includes evaluating cartilage structural responses to treatment,
notably in the FORWARD sprifermin trial, and clinically validating automated quantitative MRI
morphology and composition analysis using artificial intelligence and deep learning. Additional recent
interests are quantitative imaging markers of inflammation and bone shape.
He founded Chondrometrics in 2003 to translate academic imaging research into clinical trial
applications, serving as CEO and CMO until 2025 and continuing as CMO from 2026.
Professor Eckstein is a former President of the German Society of Biomechanics, Secretary General
and Board Member of the Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI), and Board Member
of the International Society of Osteoarthritis Imaging. He received the OARSI Clinical Research Award
in 2010 and was elected to the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2013. He has
published more than 250 peer-reviewed original articles and reviews and organized several
international meetings on osteoarthritis imaging and musculoskeletal research, most recently a
Leopoldina symposium on skeletal interfaces in 2025 in Salzburg.