Prof. Klockgether studied medicine at the University of Göttingen and during this time also carried out research at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine. After graduating, he went to Oldenburg for clinical training and then returned to the Max Planck Institute to work in basic research on Parkinson's disease. He completed his neurology training in Tübingen, where he also began to focus on degenerative ataxias, in addition to pursuing research on Parkinson’s disease. In 1998, he was appointed as Professor and Chair of Neurology at the University of Bonn. Prof. Klockgether has been the Dean of the Medical Faculty of the University of Bonn from 2008 to 2011, and the Director of Clinical Research at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) from 2011 to 2024. Prof. Klockgether led the team that developed and validated the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxias (SARA). He has been the coordinator of the European EUROSCA and RISCA cohorts und one of the principal investigators of the international READISCA cohort. Currently, he is coordinating the European Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3/Machado-Joseph Disease Initiative (ESMI). He was the founder of SCA Global which later developed into the Ataxia Global Initiative (AGI).