Michael A Schotsaert, PhD

Dr. Schotsaert obtained a master’s degree in bio-engineering (2003), a master’s degree in molecular medical biotechnology (2004) and a PhD in molecular biotechnology (2011) from Ghent University (Belgium). In 2013 he joined the lab of Dr. Adolfo García-Sastre for postdoctoral work as an immunologist and vaccinologist and has since established different vaccination and infection models (BSL2, BSL3 and BSL3+). Dr. Schotsaert’s work focuses on influenza, ZIKA and SARS-CoV-2 viruses and he has over fifteen years of experience with studying host-pathogen interactions in preclinical infection models to immunologically characterize and validate candidate vaccines, adjuvants and antiviral treatments. From an immunological point of view, his research focuses on the interplay and cross-talk between innate and adaptive immune responses during virus infection. Since January 2020, the Schotsaert laboratory is established in the Department of Microbiology and the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, and together with his team he continues to study host-immune responses to infection and vaccination in the context of comorbidities like obesity, diabetes and advanced age.