Dr. Hermann Schaetzl (Schätzl)
Positions
Associate Dean Research
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
Full Member
The Calvin, Phoebe and Joan Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases
Full Member
Hotchkiss Brain Institute
Full Member
One Health at UCalgary and AMR, One Health Consortium
Full Professor
Comparative Biology & Experimental Medicine
Contact information
Web presence
Phone number
Office: +1 (403) 210-6076
Location
Office: TRW 2D10
lab: HRIC2C47/49/54
For media enquiries, contact
Collene Ferguson
Office: +1.403.210.6615
Email: collene.ferguson@ucalgary.ca
Twitter: @UCVMnews
Background
Educational Background
Medical Consultant Medical Microbiology, Virology and Infectology, Germany, Federal Republic of, 2001
MD Human Medicine (M.D.), Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München, 1991
Doctor of Medicine Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians Un-Munich,
Biography
My experience covers human, animal and environmental health, as a tenured professor at faculties of human medicine (Germany), agriculture (USA), and now veterinary medicine (Canada). My work over 30 years studied infectious diseases, including human retroviruses, HIV, hepatitis viruses, SARS-CoV and prions. Over the past 25 years my work focused on the cellular and molecular biology of prion diseases. My laboratory has consistently produced high-quality outcomes in the field of infectology and prion disease biology and used this for devising anti-prion strategies. Trained by S.B. Prusiner (Nobel Prize 1997), I have established my own laboratory at the University of Munich, Germany, in 1995. From 2002 to 2010, I was Head of the Clinical Virology Unit at the Technical University of Munich. In 2010, I was appointed Wyoming Endowed Excellence Chair in Prion Biology, and in 2013, I joined the University of Calgary and set up the Calgary Prion Research Unit.
I have trained >120 students and researchers in my laboratory, 10 of them having now faculty/junior faculty positions. I have published >125 research articles, >30 reviews and book chapters and 3 textbooks (Molecular Virology, Molekulare Virologie), and acquired >$27,000,000 of external funding for my lab. I lead the Calgary Prion Research Unit and I am Associate Dean Research, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.
My laboratory pioneered active immunization against prion disease, characterized the impact of autophagy in prion infection, and contributed new cell models for studying prion and prion-like propagation.
Research
Areas of Research
There are an increasing number of neurodegenerative disorders which result from the aggregation of misfolded proteins. Prion diseases are unique in this group as they are infectious disorders found in man and animals. It is mandatory to understand the molecular and cellular requirements for propagation and transmission of prions in order to device rational strategies for controlling these events. The long-term goal of our group is to develop therapeutic and prophylactic anti-prion strategies. The overall objective we have is to study the cellular and molecular biology of prion infections and to use gained understanding for delineating novel targets for intervention. One of our central hypotheses is that it is feasible to interfere in prion propagation by increasing the cellular clearance for prions. Our future work will substantiate our finding that prion clearance can be enhanced by induction of autophagy, a basic cellular program for degradation and recycling. We have also found that a basal level of autophagy is needed for establishing prion infection and we propose that autophagy represents the biological equivalent for the postulated ‘disaggregase’ function in mammalian prion/prion-like biology. Another pathway we focus on is quality control mechanisms in the secretory pathway which modulate PrP maturation and PrPSc formation. Another main area of our ongoing research is based on the finding that it is possible to overcome self-tolerance against prion proteins by using dimeric/oligomeric recombinant prion proteins as immunogen. Using oral delivery strategies, we want to apply such active vaccination as a prophylactic tool against CWD infections, reducing thereby the spread of CWD within cervids and reduce the risk for a zoonotic transmission in the future. I was founding member of the Canadian-German CWD macaque consortium that studies the zoonotic potential of CWD by inoculation into Cynomolgus macaques since 2008. My laboratory passaged macaque CWD into various rodent hosts, providing the first experimental evidence that CWD can orally infect old-world monkeys, considered a relevant non-human primate model. Overall, our studies will provide mechanistic insights into basic molecular mechanisms which are relevant for neurodegenerative diseases and will result in novel targets for therapy against prion diseases and protein misfolding disorders.
Participation in university strategic initiatives
Awards
- Co-Host and Chair Prion2019 International Conference, 2019
- Science of Medicine Lecture 2012, WWAMI Lecture, University of Washington. 2012
- Japanese Health Science Foundation Award, Japanese Health Science Foundation. 2008
- 'Henry Kaplan Award', Modern Trends in Human Leukemia X. 1992
- Thesis Award summa cum laude, University of Munich, Germany. 1991
In the News
- CWD vaccine delays illness in mice. JAVMA. (2019)
- CWD. CWD, CTV News, CTV. (2021)
- CWD. RealTalk Ryan Jespersen, RealTalk Ryan Jespersen. (2021)
- BSE. Radio Canada. (2021)
- CWD. CBC Radio in Saskatchewan, CBC Radio in Saskatchewan. (2021)
- CWD. 660News Calgary, 660News Calgary. (2021)
- CWD. The Calgary Eyeopener, CBC Radio. (2021)
- CWD. 630 CHED in Edmonton, 630 CHED in Edmonton. (2021)
- CWD. afternoon radio show (Radio Active), CBC. (2021)
- CWD. EyeOpener, CTV News. (2021)
- CWD. The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press. (2021)
- New Brunswick cluster. The Walrus . (2021)
- CWD. The Western Producer. (2021)
- CWD. CWD, National Post. (2021)
- CWD. GlobalNews. (2021)
- CWD vaccines. RDNews.
- CWD vaccines. NationWorldNews. (2022)
- CWD vaccines. Western Procucer.
- CWD may have ability to jump to humans. Western Producer. (2021)
- CWD vaccines. UToday. (2021)
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