About Manfred Schmidt

Manfred Schmidt is shareholder and CEO of the start-up company GeneWerk GmbH founded in 2014. After receiving his PhD in 2000 he completed his PostDoc at University of Freiburg and later became group leader at the Institute for Molecular Medicine. In 2005 Manfred Schmidt moved to the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) in Heidelberg where he took over as head of the section “Molecular and Gene Therapy” of the department of Translational Oncology, which is also part of the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT). The development of the Linear Amplification-Mediated PCR (LAM-PCR) by Manfred Schmidt and its further development by his team allowed the highly sensitive identification and sequencing of unknown DNA or RNA sequences, which are flanked by a known DNA or RNA region.

This allowed researchers to follow the fate of single cells in extremely small tissue samples by labeling them with marker sequences. The analysis of the efficiency and safety of vector systems for the clinical gene therapy combined with the application of the newest high throughput sequencing technologies and the development of project specific bioinformatical analysis and data management systems is a major research area. Manfred Schmidt is author of more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in international high-impact journals.