Marian C. Horzinek

Board Member

Professor Marian C. Horzinek was the scientific founder of ABCD and chairman until 2014. On July 28, 2016, he passed away in his 80th year of life.

Professor Horzinek studied veterinary medicine in Germany at Giessen and Hannover Universities, from 1956 to 1961. A year later he obtained his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (Dr. med.vet.) and in 1970 he gained his ‘Habilitation’ (a PhD equivalent) in virology. He began his career in virology at the Public Health Laboratory in Hannover, where he worked as a research fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. He later helped to establish the Chair of Virology at Hannover Veterinary School, and then spent a year as a research fellow at the Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas in Caracas, Venezuela.

Upon his return, he became Head of the Exotic Diseases Division at the Federal Research Institute for Animal Virus Diseases in Tübingen, Germany. In 1971, he moved to The Netherlands where he was appointed Head of Department and Professor of Virology and Virus Diseases at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University. After 1992, Professor Horzinek has been director of Utrecht University’s Institute of Veterinary Research, and from 1996 until his retirement in 2001, he directed the Graduate School of Animal Health.

Professor Horzinek has been associate professor at the Veterinary School in Hannover, Germany, courtesy professor at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, USA, and clinical professor of virology at the School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, USA. During the last ten years, he has established and chaired scientific advisory boards at the universities of Vienna (Austria) and Barcelona (Spain).

During his career, Professor Horzinek has gained prizes and awards from research organizations in Europe, Australia and Asia, and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Ghent (Belgium), Hannover (Germany), Uppsala (Sweden), Vienna (Austria) and Guelph (Canada).

His publications include >300 scientific papers and more than 30 books and monographs, handbooks in several languages and CD-ROM articles. He has been an editor or editorial board member for scientific journals published in the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Austria, France and Italy. He is the founding president of the European (now: International) Society of Feline Medicine, of the German Gesellschaft für Kynologische Forschung, the Prevention of Equine Diseases (PrEquId) Board, and recently became ambassador of the Black Jaguar Foundation, a non-profit organization with the objective to save the rainforest.

List of 10 selected publications

  • Day MJ, Horzinek MC, Schultz RD., Squires, R.A.. WSAVA Guidelines for the vaccination of dogs and cats. Compiled by the vaccination guidelines group (VGG) of the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA).J Small Anim Pract. 2016 57(1):4-8 and E1-E45.
  • Horzinek, M.C. Vaccination protocols for companion animals: the veterinarian’s perspective. J.Comp.Path. (2010) 142, 129-132.
  • Horzinek MC, Thiry E. Vaccines and vaccination: the principles and the polemics. J Feline Med Surg. 2009 Jul;11(7):530-7. Review.
  • de Wit MC, Horzinek MC, Haagmans BL, Schijns VE. Immunisation with virion-loaded plasmacytoid or myeloid dendritic cells induces primary Th-1 immune responses. Vaccine. 2005. 23, 1343-1350.
  • Simons FA, Vennema H, Rofina JE, Pol JM, Horzinek MC, Rottier PJ, Egberink HF. A mRNA PCR for the diagnosis of feline infectious peritonitis. J Virol Methods. 2005. 124, 111-116.
  • Horzinek, M.C., Schmidt, V. and Lutz, H. Krankheiten der Katze. Enke Verlag Stuttgart, 4.Auflage (2005).
  • de Wit, M.C., Horzinek, M.C., Haagmans, B.L., Schijns, V.E.J.C. Host-dependent type 1 cytokine responses driven by inactivated viruses may fail to default in the absence of IL-12 or IFN-a/ß. Journal of General Virology 2004. 85 (4) , 795-803.
  • Smits, S. L., Lavazza, A., Matiz, K., Horzinek, M. C., Koopmans, M. P., de Groot, R. J. (2003) Phylogenetic and evolutionary relationships among torovirus field variants: evidence for multiple intertypic recombination events. J Virol. 77, 9567-9577.
  • Horzinek MC Vaccination: a philosophical view. Adv Vet Med 1999;41:1-6.
  • Murphy, F.A., Gibbs, P., Horzinek, M.C. and Studdert, M. Veterinary Virology. Academic Press, New York (1998).