Dr. Dietmar Schmitz

Biography

After his medical studies and PhD thesis at the University of Cologne and the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Dietmar Schmitz continued his scientific carrier at the Charité and later at the University of California, San Francisco. In 2002 he returned to Germany as a junior research leader through the Emmy Noether Program and became Professor of Cellular and Molecular Neurosciences and Chair of the Neuroscience Research Center in 2005. From 2007- 2012 he coordinated the Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure and became speaker of the DZNE Berlin in 2011. He was appointed to the Young Academy of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German Academy of Natural Sciences, received the Schilling and Bernard Katz Awards as well as several teaching awards. In 2011 he was granted the first Einstein Professorship by the Einstein Foundation Berlin. His research focuses on synaptic transmission, synaptic plasticity and network function in health and disease.

Research Interest

Memory consolidation takes place not only at the cellular but also at the systemic level. In the context of systems consolidation, trace-transfer consolidation emphasizes the transfer of memory traces over time, for example from the hippocampus to the cortex. Surprisingly, analyses of disease models have mainly focused on synaptic functions, but the few available investigations have indicated that important dysfunctions exist on the systemic level. We use in vivo and in vitro techniques to study the physiology and pathophysiology of neuronal networks and aim to elucidate whether and how neuronal networks are disturbed in Alzheimer's disease by the use of mouse models that display amyloid and Tau pathology. Finally, we will study the hippocampus proper and other brain areas such as the entorhinal cortex and the piriform cortex, because the latter are affected early in Alzheimer's disease. Together, these studies will help to unravel the network mechanisms underlying neurological diseases.