Prof. em. Dr. Martin E. Schwab

Martin E. Schwab has been full Professor of Neuroscience at the ETH Zurich since 1997 and since 1985 at the Institute for Brain Research at the University of Zurich. He is currently working as Senior Professor at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine of UZH.

Prof. Schwab was born on April 11, 1949 in Basel. He studied zoology at the University of Basel and wrote his doctoral dissertation on a topic in neuroanatomy. He completed his habilitation following a four-year postdoc period at the Bio-Center in Basel, and then worked in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School (Boston, Mass.) and at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich.

The research group directed by Martin E. Schwab was established in 1985 at the Institute for Brain Research at the University of Zurich (Faculty of Medicine) and since 1997 has been part of the Biology Department , from 2012 on at D-HEST of ETH Zurich as well. The group is investigating cellular and molecular mechanisms of nerve fiber growth, in particular during regeneration of injured nerve fibers in the spinal cord and the brain, as well as in relation to structural plasticity in the adult central nervous system. The methods stem from molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, neuroanatomy and behavioral analysis.

This research led to a new paradigm in spinal cord injury research by the characterization of a novel protein of the central nervous system, namely Nogo-A, which is a strong inhibitor of nerve fiber outgrowth. Function blocking antibodies against Nogo-A have been developed, and in animal models it was shown that Nogo-A antibody treatment of spinal cord or brain injured animals leads to functional recovery and the formation of new nerve fiber connections. Nogo-A antibody treatment is currently applied to spinal cord injured patients in a multicenter European Phase 2 clinical trial.