Before joining the University of Malta's Dept. of Anatomy, Prof Schembri-Wismayer worked in St Luke's teaching hospital in Accident and Emergency medicine and at the National Blood Transfusion centre, amongst others. He was also responsible for isolating and freezing cells from the last pure Maltese ox (Gendus Malti).
He read for his medical degree at the University of Malta and after receiving his warrant, did voluntary medical work in Kenya. He then pursued his PhD in cellular Oncology at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in affiliation with Glasgow University, graduating in 2000.
Prof Schembri-Wismayer was the national EU contact organisation (MCST) expert for the Life sciences, signing the first project Malta was involved in (TRAIN_NET) as a paying EU research programme member. .
He leads the Cancer Therapeutics lab in the Centre for Molecular Medicine and Biobanking, developing novel immunotherapies and differentiation therapy. He has a strong interest in anatomical biomechanics, cololaborating with engineering colleagues to produce a novel hip joint, which is patented and licensed out to British start-up Garland Surgical. He is now patenting the Maltaknee, another orthopaedic device. He has supervised several Ph.D's and Masters students and teaches Anatomy and Cell Biology to undergraduate students in the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery.
Prof Schembri-Wismayer won a contract with the EU's FP6 programme to produce a television series, later called X-lab, filmed in Malta, Cyprus and around Europe, to encourage youngsters to take up science as a career. This was distributed Europe-wide. He regularly takes part in Teen Science cafe to encourage children to take up science, talks on TV and Radio shows about research and contributes to other science communication fora. Including this, Prof Schembri-Wismayer has been involved in bringing in more than 2 million worth of grant funding to the University.
He regularly collaborates in research with local industry, particularly, Nutribiotech Ltd and with international partners, including in in China, Greece, Serbia and Portugal. He also sits on the management committees of 3 different European COST actions
