Dr. Schnabl received his medical degree from the University of Freiburg in Germany. During his three-year postdoctoral research training at the Department of Medicine, Biochemistry & Biophysics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he started to study hepatic stellate cell biology and pathophysiology of chronic liver diseases. He completed a residency in Medicine at the University Hospital in Regensburg/Germany and a Gastroenterology fellowship at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, in New York City.

He is currently a Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of California San Diego. He is staff physician and attending at the VA San Diego Medical Center and the UC San Diego Medical Center. He divides his time between clinical work and research. He recently became the Director of the NIH-funded San Diego Digestive Diseases Research Center (SDDRC).