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Calgary Prion Research Unit, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary

The Calgary Prion Research Unit (CPRU) is a research unit run by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Calgary, Alberta. Its existence and name are confirmed by the unit's own page on the faculty website, which describes it as a unit supporting prion and prion-like disease researchers from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, the Cumming School of Medicine and the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, names Hermann Schaetzl as director and says core funding comes from the Alberta Prion Research Institute (APRI). Schaetzl's profile says he set the unit up after joining the university in 2013. Its work spans chronic wasting disease (CWD) vaccines and strains, prion cell biology, drug repurposing in prion infected mice, including a mouse model infected with human sporadic CJD prions, and imaging of early prion aggregates. It is the lead affiliation on the 2026 Science Advances paper on CWD transmission to cynomolgus macaques, the long running APRI funded primate study. Faculty of Veterinary Medicine researchers also co-author with the CFIA BSE reference laboratory in Lethbridge, although those papers use the faculty name rather than the unit name. Most of its work is on animal prion disease; the human relevance is mainly through zoonotic risk research and early therapeutic work in mice. Information only, not medical or veterinary advice.

Key facts

  • The unit page calls the CPRU a University of Calgary unit operated by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, serving scientists from that faculty, the Cumming School of Medicine and the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, with the aim of finding ways to detect, prevent or treat human and animal neurodegenerative diseases.
  • The same page names Schaetzl as director and states that core funding comes from the Alberta Prion Research Institute. APRI itself ended operations on 31 March 2022, so this line may be out of date (see open questions).
  • Members listed: six full members, with Schaetzl as head and Sabine Gilch as a second principal investigator, plus five adjunct members. Member research areas named on the unit page are prion vaccines and cell biology, CWD and prion-host interaction, amyloid imaging, transgenic mouse models, non-traditional prion-like diseases and chaperone biology.
  • Schaetzl's university profile says he joined the University of Calgary in 2013 and set up the unit, and that he was a founding member of the Canadian-German CWD macaque consortium, which has inoculated cynomolgus macaques with CWD since 2008.
  • 48 papers indexed in Europe PMC carry the unit's name as an affiliation, dated 2017 to 2026.
  • The 2026 Science Advances macaque paper (online 27 May 2026) lists the Calgary Prion Research Unit with UTHealth Houston, Saarland University, the German Primate Center and the Robert Koch Institute, and lists six APRI grants among its funding; it found limited transmission, with two of 18 macaques showing signs suggestive of prion disease and low prion levels in tissues that transmitted to mice and bank voles.
  • Vaccine work: a 2018 paper reported that recombinant prion protein vaccines raised antibodies in elk PrP mice and prolonged survival after CWD challenge in all vaccinated groups (best group mean 183 versus 114 days), with a small reindeer pilot. A 2026 paper reported that vaccination reduced, and in some mice prevented, prion shedding in faeces and urine in a mouse model of CWD.
  • Human prion disease model: a 2025 JCI Insight paper from the unit reported that low dose oral efavirenz slowed disease and extended survival in mice overexpressing human prion protein and infected with human sporadic CJD prions, acting through brain cholesterol metabolism (CYP46A1); funded by APRI and CIHR. This is a mouse study only.
  • Testing: the unit took part in a 2020 cross-validation of RT-QuIC on rectal biopsies from live elk with NIAID Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Colorado State University, Iowa State University, the CFIA Ottawa scrapie and CWD reference laboratory and USDA, which found RT-QuIC detected more positives than immunohistochemistry. A 2021 paper with Linkoping co-authors used a fluorescent oligothiophene probe to detect prion deposits in mice before clinical signs.
  • Faculty of Veterinary Medicine researchers co-authored a 2023 BSE typing paper with the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut and CFIA Lethbridge and a 2024 CWD infection route paper with the CFIA Lethbridge BSE reference laboratory, both with APRI funding; neither names the unit in its affiliations.
  • In December 2022 Sabine Gilch, a unit principal investigator and Canada Research Chair in prion disease, received a 4.25 million dollar NSERC Alliance team grant for CWD mitigation, including oral deer vaccines and soil decontamination, with the CFIA among the partners.
  • CORDIS reported in 2007 that the APRI primate CWD study was coordinated from a Lethbridge laboratory which it placed at the University of Calgary; this predates the unit.

Timeline

  1. 2007APRI announces the 3.5 million euro primate CWD study later published with the unit as lead affiliation.
  2. 2008Canadian-German consortium begins inoculating cynomolgus macaques with CWD, per the unit head's profile.
  3. 2013Hermann Schaetzl joins the University of Calgary and sets up the unit, per his profile.
  4. 2017Earliest indexed paper using the unit affiliation.
  5. 2018Recombinant prion protein CWD vaccine paper in elk PrP mice and reindeer published.
  6. 2020RT-QuIC cross-validation for live CWD testing in elk published with RML and CFIA Ottawa.
  7. 2022NSERC Alliance grant of 4.25 million dollars for CWD mitigation announced.
  8. 2023BSE typing paper with the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut and CFIA Lethbridge published.
  9. 2024CWD infection route paper with the CFIA Lethbridge BSE reference laboratory published.
  10. 2025Efavirenz study in a sporadic CJD mouse model published.
  11. 2026Paper on reduced prion shedding after CWD vaccination published.
  12. 2026Macaque CWD transmission study published in Science Advances.
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