Secretary

Dr. Reimmschuessel graduated cum laude (BA), and obtained a degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania (VMD).

Following graduation, she went into small and exotic animal practice for 5 years.  She then returned to school and received her Ph.D. in Pathology from the University of Maryland, specializing in aquatic animal pathology.

From 1989-1999 she stayed at University of Maryland School of Medicine as Director of the Aquatic Pathobiology Center, Associate Professor. And, in 1999, she joined the Center for Veterinary Medicine at FDA to start up the Aquaculture Research program.

Her major research interests include:

•       Food Safety – chemical and microbial

•       Drug development for aquaculture including:
  • Biodistribution, residue persistence, metabolism
  • Druf efficacy
  • Environmental effects of drugs and other chemicals used in aquaculture

  Past research includes:

• Renal toxicologic pathology – studying fish kidney repair responses
• Immunotoxicology – using fish immune function as an indicator of environmental pollution,
• Diagnostic aquatic animal pathology

She is an active mentor for graduate students and for many other students, including veterinary interns, college students, and high school science teachers, and taught in the AquaVet program for 18 years.

She has over 125 publications in peer-reviewed journals and has authored multiple book chapters.  In addition, she has led numerous workshops on aquatic animal medicine and research.

Dr. Reimschuessel was a finalist for the 2008 Service to America Awards for her work during the Pet Food Recall of 2007 – “Achievement: Made the scientific breakthrough to identify the cause of the largest pet food recall in history and is currently conducting critical research to guarantee the safety of imported foods.”     

She was also a co-author on the Society of Toxicology’s “Best Paper of the Year” 2009. The paper describes her collaborative study with P&G during the pet food recall.

In 2010 She created a network of over 40 Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratories to work with FDA to investigate animal food and animal drug contamination/adulteration events.  This network,
Vet-LIRN (https://tinyurl.com/Vet-LIRN) has investigated many high-profile cases while also developing new chemical and biological testing methods. 

In 2020, she also led an effort to successfully validate veterinary test methods for SARS-Cov2 virus for Vet-LIRN laboratories testing for animal and human COVID-19 cases.  The paper published in 2021 recently received ““Best Paper of the Year” 2021 from AAVLD.

Renate is an avid contra dancer, likes Irish music (and beer) and occasionally tries her hand at playing the fiddle.