Affiliation: Stanford Cardiovascular Institute

In 2012, Dr. Katharina Schimmel received her MSc degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology with high honors at the Karl-Franzens-University Graz, Austria. There is currently no treatment for Troyer syndrome, a rare disease of spastic paraplegia. Therefore, together with the lab of Prof. Frank Madeo, a distinguished expert on aging and cell death, she aimed at filling the lack of knowledge on the pathogenesis of this disease. She found that replenishing the cellular protection by the protein spartin, which is lost in patients with Troyer Syndrome, might represent an attractive avenue for future therapeutic development.

During her PhD studies from 2013 – 2017 in Medical School Hannover, Germany, she received throughout training by Prof. Thomas Thum. Diastolic heart failure represents an unmet medical need to date. Her work with him therefore aimed at the development of natural compounds and microRNA-based preventive and therapeutic approaches for cardiac fibrosis, leading to ameliorated diastolic performance of the heart. She discovered two nature derived substances as lead candidates for therapeutic applications in diastolic dysfunction and cardiac fibrosis in pre-clinical studies, which was published in Circulation.

Intrigued by the opportunity to expand her expertise with cardiac regeneration research, she joined Prof. Ronglih Liao’s lab at Stanford Cardiovascular Institute in 2018. Dr. Katharina Schimmel’s work demonstrated detrimental effects of in utero exposure to cigarette smoke on cardiac regeneration in the offspring in mice. This was featured in the AHA News August 2019.

In the year 2020, she became interested in diseases affecting the lung. She therefore joined Dr. Edda Spiekerkoetter’s lab at the Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Stanford to address pathological changes in the endothelium in pulmonary-vascular conditions.