A Sad Message From Our Team. Loss of Our Co-founder Dr. Manfred Schmidt Read more
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Dr. Manfred Schmidt (†)
CEOWe mourn the loss of our co-founder and CEO Dr. Manfred Schmidt. Manfred, age 54, passed away on January 13th, 2022. On behalf of the entire GeneWerk (now ProtaGene) team, we extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife and to his family, friends and colleagues. With deep affection and much respect, we need to say goodbye to an extraordinary person.
More about Dr. Manfred Schmidt (†)
Manfred Schmidt, PhD is a Co-Founder and CEO of GeneWerk GmbH. He has a twenty-year track record in cell and gene therapy, experience spanning R&D, clinical medicine, assay development and commercialization.
He was most recently the Section Head of Molecular and Gene Therapy at the German Cancer Research Center, also part of the National Center for Tumor Diseases. Manfred was instrumental in the development of Linear Amplification-Mediated PCR (LAM-PCR), which allowed the highly sensitive identification and sequencing of unknown DNA or RNA sequences, which are flanked by a known DNA or RNA region.
The application of LAM-PCR and its follow up development have been widely used in vector safety assessment of cell and gene therapy. The analysis of the efficiency and safety of vector systems for the clinical gene therapy combined with the application of the high throughput sequencing technologies and the development of project specific bioinformatical analysis and data management systems is his major research area.
Dr. Manfred Schmidt is author of more than 120 peer-reviewed publications in international high-impact journals. He obtained his doctoral degree from University of Freiburg, and a Diploma degree in Biology in University Hohenheim, Germany.