Professor Schlaich is a renal physician and an ESH accredited hypertension specialist with a strong background in clinical research. His main scientific interests focus on pathophysiologic aspects of hypertension including the contribution of the sympathetic nervous system, the L-arginine/nitric oxide pathway, their interaction, and the involvement of the kidneys. Professor Schlaich has a specific interest in treatment modalities targeting the sympathetic nervous system and has contributed to the development of renal denervation as a novel therapeutic approach to hypertension.

He has been highly successful in attracting competitive grant funding including 11 NHMRC project grants since 2006. He has authored more than 280 articles and book chapters in peer reviewed journals including the NEJM, Lancet, Eur Heart J, Circulation, Hypertension, J Am Soc Nephrol and others. He has received several research prizes and awards including the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Medical Research Translation and the HBPRCA Colin I Johnston Lecturer Award. He serves on the Executive Committee of the High Blood Pressure Research Council of Australia and is a member of the Council of the International Society of Hypertension and Chair of the Regional Advisory Group for Asia & Australasia. He is also a founding member of the ESH Working Group on Interventional Treatment of Hypertension. He is on the Editorial Board of Hypertension and Journal of Hypertension.

Since 2006 he is Head of the Neurovascular Hypertension and Kidney Disease Laboratory at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Research Institute, Melbourne, and currently holds an NHMRC Senior Research Fellowship. He has served on several guideline committees including the recent National Heart Foundation Hypertension Guidelines Committee. In July 2014 he has taken up the Dobney Chair in Clinical Research at the University of Western Australia and Royal Perth Hospital, where he provides comprehensive hypertension services as Head of the Dobney Hypertension Centre (DHC), which is accredited as a Hypertension Excellence Centre by the European Society of Hypertension. He continuous to run his lab at the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute as an honorary research fellow.