He heads the Center for Medical Services Research (ZMV) and, together with Professor Luttenberger and Professor Donath, heads the Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology at the Psychiatric and Psychotherapeutic Clinic at the University Hospital Erlangen. CV: He studied medicine and received his doctorate in 1990 from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. There he was authorized to teach medical psychology in 1998 and medical sociology in 2003. He has headed the ZMV since 2010. Since 2005, Gräßel has been the scientific principal investigator of eight prospective, randomized controlled trials on the care of people with cognitive deficits—from mild cognitive impairment to severe dementia—through non-pharmacological interventions. His focus is on research into the multimodal MAKS intervention, which was developed and investigated as part of the Federal Ministry of Health's Lighthouse Dementia Initiative (2008–2010).