Hofmann-Lehmann, Regina

Regina Hofmann-Lehmann is professor of Laboratory Medicine at the University of Zurich and since 2017 appointed as head of the Department of Clinical Diagnostics and Services at the University Animal Hospital of the Vetsuisse Faculty.

She had a research appointment at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and was instructor at the Harvard Medical School, Boston MA, USA (1998–2001). As the only veterinarian so far she received a professorship of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF, 2004–2010).

Since 2011 she is head of the diagnostic Clinical Laboratory (www.vetlabor.ch), a multivalent laboratory that receives 30’000 samples/year from animal patients for laboratory analyses, including serology and molecular diagnostics of infectious diseases. The laboratory is the only one in Switzerland accredited by the European College of Veterinary Clinical Pathology (ECVCP). In addition, she is also Head of the Center for Clinical Studies (www.zks.uzh.ch), a core research facility of the Vetsuisse Faculty dedicated to support the laboratory-based clinical research of currently 120 users from 30 research groups.

She served many years as President of the Swiss Association of Veterinary Laboratory Diagnostics (SVVLD; www.svvld.ch). She is board member of the European Advisory Board on Cat Diseases (ABCD, www.abcdcatsvets.org) and member of the standing committee on vaccination in small animals of the Swiss Association for Small Animal Medicine (SVK).

Her research focuses are clinical infectiology and laboratory medicine with special interests in molecular diagnostics; pathogenesis, and prophylaxis of retrovirus and coronavirus infections; haemotropic mycoplasmas; and other infectious diseases particularly in domestic and wild felids. She is author of more than 300 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and of several book chapters, e.g., in Ettinger’s Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine, 10th Edition 2022, and Greene's Infectious Diseases of the Dog and Cat, 5th Edition 2022. Her research involves collaborations with research groups and clinicians worldwide.

Since spring 2020 her research team has been investigating SARS-CoV-2 infections in domestic and wild animals with a special focus on One Health aspects and infections of pets in COVID-19 affected households. Her research group published details on the first SARS-CoV-2 positive cat in Switzerland (Klaus et al., 2021a, www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/3/496). Meanwhile, several positive cats and a dog have been found SARS-CoV-2 positive by her group (Klaus et al., 2021b, www.oie.int/en/what-we-offer/emergency-and-resilience/covid-19/#ui-id-3) and serological analyses document that a higher percentage of pets have undergone SARS-CoV-2 infection than previous assumed. Moreover, in a collaboration with the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich (LMU), the group of the clinical laboratory published the first prospective study on “Curing cats with feline infectious peritonitis with an oral multi-component drug containing GS-4415242”. Further studies on FIP treatment with GS-441524 are ongoing.