Professor Markus W. Büchler is the executive director and professor of surgery at the department of surgery at Heidelberg University. He studied medicine at the universities of Heidelberg and Berlin in Germany and underwent his surgical training in Berlin and at the university hospital in Ulm. In 1987 Professor Büchler became attending surgeon and in 1991 leading attending surgeon at the University of Ulm.

In 1993 Professor Büchler became head of department and professor of surgery at the University of Bern in Switzerland. In 2001 he came back to Germany when he was offered the position as medical director and professor of surgery at the University of Heidelberg. In 2006 Professor Büchler also became the head of the surgical department at the Salem hospital in Heidelberg and in 2009 as well the head of the surgical department of the general hospital in Sinsheim, Germany.

Professor Büchler ist the current president of the German Society for General and GI Surgery and the president elect of the German Surgical Society for the 2011/2012 period. In 2009 he was elected as a member for the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. He has served as president for the European Pancreatic club and the international hepato-pancreato-biliary association among others.  

Professor Büchler is a well-known expert in hepatobiliary surgery, rectal surgery and especially pancreatic surgery. His scientific publications deal with clinical studies, as well as the molecular basis of pancreatic cancer and chronic pancreatitis.