Prof. Dr. Thomas Schulz on the death of Prof. Dr. Reinhold E. Schmidt

„We are deeply saddened that Prof. Reinhold E. Schmidt died on 23 January 2022. Reinhold Schmidt helped to establish RESIST and he played an important role as a member of the Research Management Board and the Internal Advisory Board. He also co-led the A2 research project, which aims to discover the genetic causes of primary immunodeficiencies. Reinhold Schmidt was a long-time Director of the MHH-Department of Immunology and Rheumatology, Dean of the Hannover Biomedical Research School (HBRS) and above all he was a great, internationally respected immunologist and rheumatologist. We will always remember him as a highly energetic and positive thinking long-time friend, colleague and companion.“

Prof. Dr. Thomas Schulz is speaker of the Cluster of Excellence RESIST.

We are deeply saddened that Prof. Reinhold E. Schmidt died on 23 January 2022. Reinhold Schmidt helped to establish RESIST and he played an important role as a member of the Research Management Board and the Internal Advisory Board. He also co-led the A2 research project, which aims to discover the genetic causes of primary immunodeficiencies. Reinhold Schmidt was a long-time Director of the MHH-Department of Immunology and Rheumatology, Dean of the Hannover Biomedical Research School (HBRS) and above all he was a great, internationally respected immunologist and rheumatologist. We will always remember him as a highly energetic and positive thinking long-time friend, colleague and companion.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Schulz is speaker of the Cluster of Excellence RESIST.

Prof. Dr. Reinhold E. Schmidt participated in RESIST research project A2.

My Research Interest in RESIST

Our research focus in RESIST is identification and validation of novel genes impairing the immune system leading to severe and atypical life threatening infections and predisposition to malignancies. Here we have a long standing experience with primary immunodeficiency (PID) patients which have undergone targeted gene panel (TGP) sequencing or whole exom sequencing (WES). But still many of these patients remain undiagnosed and therefore we look also for epigenetic profiles and the regulation of gene expression by the gut microbiome. Over the years we want to reduce the number of unsolved cases improving our understanding how the epigenome works and the relationship between gut microbiome, disease severity, and co-morbidity in PID patients with malignancies, autoimmunity and inflammation. 

Prof. Schmidt

Prof. Dr. Reinhold E. Schmidt – Curriculum Vitae

Positions

  • 1995 – 2020 Full (W3) Professor of Medicine and Immunology, Director of Department of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, MHH

  • Leader Research Group „Inborn Errors of Immunity“

  • Dean of Hannover Biomedical Research School

Undergraduate and Postgraduate Training

  • 1970 – 1976 Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms University Bonn, Studies of Medicine and Psychology

  • 1976 Medical Doctorate (Dr. med.; Supervisor Prof. Dr. med. I. Stroehmann)

  • 1985 Habilitation (Supervisor Prof. Dr. med. H. Deicher)

  • Certificates Specialist Training in Internal Medicine, Rheumatology and Infectious Diseases

Academic and Research Posts

  • 1977 – 1983 Assistant Physician, Medizinische Universitätsklinik, University of Bonn, Germany

  • 1980 Postgraduate Training in Rheumatology Unit, Hammersmith Hospital, Royal Postgraduate Medical School, London

  • 1983 – 1986 Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Medicine, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA

  • 1986 – 1994 Attending Physician, Department Clinical Immunology, MHH

  • 1995/2007 Full Professor, Department of Immunology and Rheumatology, MHH

  • 1995 – 2001 Speaker of the Graduate Program “Molecular Biology of the Pathological Cell Growth”

  • Since 2000 Speaker of the First MD / PhD Program at German Medical Faculties

  • Since 2003 Dean of Hannover Biomedical Research School (HBRS) (Graduate School of Excellence

  • 2005 – 2006 President of German Society of Immunology

  • 2006 – 2017 Member of the Steering Committee Excellence Cluster REBIRTH

  • 2011 – 2018 Speaker of the Clinical Research Group KFO 250 “Molecular and cellular mechanisms of autoimmunity”

  • Since 2019 Member of the Cluster of Excellence 2155 RESIST “Resolving Infection Susceptibility”

Other Scientific Roles

  • Since 1996  Member of Various Collaborative Projects, Founding Initiatives and Boards of these (e.g. SFB 244, SFB 566, SFB 738) 

  • Since 2004 Chairman of the Scientific Board Paul-Ehrlich Institute, Langen

  • Since 2007 Chairman of the Board of the Research Institutes of the German Ministry of Health

  • Since 2017 President of Board of Trustees of the German Research Center for Rheumatism (DRFZ)

Awards and Prizes

  • 1992 Rudolf Schoen Prize for „Diagnostics and Pathomechamisms of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH)“

  • 1994 Jan Brod Prize for “Intrinsic human glomerular mesangial cells can express receptors for IgG complexes (hFcxRIII-A) and the associated FcxRI-chain”, J. Immunol. 153: 1281, 1994

  • 2007 Dr. Joachim Hilfenhaus Award

  • 2011 Research Prize of the German AIDS Society

  • Since 2007 Member of the National Academy of Science Leopoldina

Recommended Links

For further information about Prof. Schmidt’s scientific work please check the following links:

10 Selected Publications (of > 463 original publications)

Sogkas G, Fedchenko M, Dhingra A, Jablonka A, Schmidt RE, Atschekzei F. Primary immunodeficiency disorder caused by phosphoinositide 3-kinase δ deficiency. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2018;142:1650-1653.e2.

Schmidt RE, Grimbacher B, Witte T. Autoimmunity and primary immunodeficiency: two sides of the same coin? Nat Rev Rheumatol. 2017;14:7-18.

Sogkas G, Atschekzei F, Schacht V, von Falck C, Jablonka A, Jacobs R, Stoll M, Witte T, Schmidt RE. First Association of Interleukin 12 Receptor Beta 1 Deficiency with Sjögren’s Syndrome. Front Immunol. 2017;8:885.

Schröder C, Baerlecken NT, Pannicke U, Dörk T, Witte T, Jacobs R, Stoll M, Schwarz K, Grimbacher B, Schmidt RE, Atschekzei F. Evaluation of RAG1 mutations in an adult with combined immunodeficiency and progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy. Clin Immunol. 2017;179:1-7.

Atschekzei F, Dörk T, Schürmann P, Geffers R, Witte T, Schmidt RE. Limited role of interferon-kappa (IFNK) truncating mutations in common variable immunodeficiency. Cytokine. 2017;96:71-74.

Atschekzei F, Ahmad F, Witte T, Jacobs R, Schmidt RE. Limitation of simultaneous analysis of T-cell receptor and κ-deleting recombination excision circles based on multiplex real-time polymerase chain reaction in common variable immunodeficiency patients. Int Arch Allergy Immunol. 2016;171:136-140.

Li J, Jørgensen SF, Maggadottir SM, Bakay M, Warnatz K, Glessner J, Pandey R, Salzer U, Schmidt RE, Perez E, Resnick E, Goldacker S, Buchta M, Witte T, Padyukov L, Videm V, Folseraas T, Atschekzei F, Elder JT, Nair RP, Winkelmann J, Gieger C, Nöthen MM, Büning C, Brand S, Sullivan KE, Orange JS, Fevang B, Schreiber S, Lieb W, Aukrust P, Chapel H, Cunningham-Rundles C, Franke A, Karlsen TH, Grimbacher B, Hakonarson H, Hammarström L, Ellinghaus E. Association of CLEC16A with human common variable immunodeficiency disorder and role in murine B cells. Nat Commun. 2015 Apr 20;6:6804

Schubert D, Bode C, Kenefeck R, Hou TZ, Wing JB, Kennedy A, Bulashevska A, Petersen BS, Schäffer AA, Grüning BA, Unger S, Frede N, Baumann U, Witte T, Schmidt RE, Dueckers G, Niehues T, Seneviratne S, Kanariou M, Speckmann C, Ehl S, Rensing-Ehl A, Warnatz K, Rakhmanov M, Thimme R, Hasselblatt P, Emmerich F, Cathomen T, Backofen R, Fisch P, Seidl M, May A, Schmitt-Graeff A, Ikemizu S, Salzer U, Franke A, Sakaguchi S, Walker LS, Sansom DM, Grimbacher B. Autosomal dominant immune dysregulation syndrome in humans with CTLA4 mutations. Nat Med. 2014;20:1410-6.

Plant D, Flynn E, Mbarek H, Dieudé P, Cornelis F, Arlestig L, Dahlqvist SR, Goulielmos G, Boumpas DT, Sidiropoulos P, Johansen JS, Ornbjerg LM, Hetland ML, Klareskog L, Filer A, Buckley CD, Raza K, Witte T, Schmidt RE, Worthington J. Investigation of potential non-HLA rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility loci in a European cohort increases the evidence for nine markers. Ann Rheum Dis 2010; 69:1548-53.

Forssmann WG, The YH, Stoll M, Adermann K, Albrecht U, Barlos K, Busmann A, Canales-Mayordomo A, Giménez-Gallego G, Hirsch J, Jiménez-Barbero J, Meyer-Olson D, Münch J, Pérez-Castells J, Ständker L, Kirchhoff F, Schmidt RE. Short-term monotherapy in HIV-infected patients with a virus entry inhibitor against the gp41 fusion peptide. Sci Transl Med. 2010; 2:63re3.