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Gunnar Gottschalk

  • Adjunct Faculty

Dr. C. Gunnar Gottschalk is the CEO and Managing Board Member of Simmaron Research Inc. (SRI), a 501(c)(3) biomedical research foundation established in 2011 in Incline Village, Nevada. He earned his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Rush University in 2020 and currently serves as Section Chief of Translational Science. His research focuses on the design and execution of mechanism-based clinical trials across a range of therapeutic areas, including his ongoing trial investigating the efficacy of low-dose rapamycin (sirolimus) in patients with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) and other infection-associated chronic conditions (IACCs) (NCT06257420).

Dr. Gottschalk is the co-founder of Sotira Scientific and co-inventor of KEPTIDE (U.S. Patent No. 11,078,242), an intranasal peptide therapy developed for the prevention and treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Simmpyra Pharmaceuticals, LLC, an oncology-focused startup based at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Milwaukee Institute for Drug Discovery. Simmpyra is developing patent-pending STAT3-targeting compounds for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

Since 2021, Dr. Gottschalk has led a highly productive collaboration between SRI and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. This partnership has attracted substantial support from private donors, establishing a financially sustainable research model. Over the past five years, the collaboration has resulted in six major foundation grants, one NIH R21 award, and direct research funding for the UWM Department of Chemistry. Dr. Gottschalk’s leadership has been instrumental in advancing research on ME/CFS, Long COVID, IACCs, and early-stage therapeutic development in peptide biology and autophagy-modulating compounds.

Selected Publications (10 selected in the past 10 years)

  1. Ruan BT, Bulbule S, Reyes A, Chheda B, Bateman L, Bell J, Yellman B, Grach S, Berner J, Peterson DL, Kaufman D, Roy A, *Gottschalk CG. Low Dose Rapamycin Alleviates Clinical Symptoms of Fatigue and PEM in ME/CFS Patients via Improvement of Autophagy. Res Sq. 2025 Jun 3;. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6596158/v1. PubMed PMID: 40502741; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC12155199. (*Corresponding Author)
  2. Drosen ME, Bulbule S, Gottschalk G, Peterson D, Allen LA, Arnold LA, Roy A. Inactivation of ATG13 stimulates chronic demyelinating pathologies in muscle-serving nerves and spinal cord. Immunol Res. 2025 Jan 7;73(1):27. doi: 10.1007/s12026-024-09557-7. PubMed PMID: 39777574; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11706859.
  3. Bulbule S, Gottschalk CG, Drosen ME, Peterson D, Arnold LA, Roy A. Dysregulation of tetrahydrobiopterin metabolism in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome by pentose phosphate pathway. J Cent Nerv Syst Dis. 2024;16:11795735241271675. doi: 10.1177/11795735241271675. eCollection 2024. PubMed PMID: 39161795; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC11331476.
  4. Gottschalk CG, Whelan R, Peterson D, Roy A. Detection of Elevated Level of Tetrahydrobiopterin in Serum Samples of ME/CFS Patients with Orthostatic Intolerance: A Pilot Study. Int J Mol Sci. 2023 May 13;24(10). doi: 10.3390/ijms24108713. PubMed PMID: 37240059; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC10218672.
  5. Gottschalk CG, Peterson D, Armstrong J, Knox K, Roy A. Potential molecular mechanisms of chronic fatigue in long haul COVID and other viral diseases. Infect Agent Cancer. 2023 Feb 7;18(1):7. doi: 10.1186/s13027-023-00485-z. Review. PubMed PMID: 36750846; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC9902840.
  6. Gottschalk G, Peterson D, Knox K, Maynard M, Whelan RJ, Roy A. Elevated ATG13 in serum of patients with ME/CFS stimulates oxidative stress response in microglial cells via activation of receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE). Mol Cell Neurosci. 2022 May;120:103731. doi: 10.1016/j.mcn.2022.103731. Epub 2022 Apr 26. PubMed PMID: 35487443.
  7. Gottschalk G, Knox K, Roy A. ACE2: At the crossroad of COVID-19 and lung cancer. Gene Rep. 2021 Jun;23:101077. doi: 10.1016/j.genrep.2021.101077. Epub 2021 Mar 11. Review. PubMed PMID: 33723522; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7946539.
  8. Gottschalk CG, Jana M, Roy A, Patel DR, Pahan K. Gemfibrozil Protects Dopaminergic Neurons in a Mouse Model of Parkinson's Disease via PPARα-Dependent Astrocytic GDNF Pathway. J Neurosci. 2021 Mar 10;41(10):2287-2300. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3018-19.2021. Epub 2021 Jan 29. PubMed PMID: 33514677; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8018777.
  9. Gottschalk CG, Roy A, Jana M, Kundu M, Pahan K. Activation of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor-α Increases the Expression of Nuclear Receptor Related 1 Protein (Nurr1) in Dopaminergic Neurons. Mol Neurobiol. 2019 Nov;56(11):7872-7887. doi: 10.1007/s12035-019-01649-y. Epub 2019 May 24. PubMed PMID: 31127527; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC8174404.
  10. Hornig M, Gottschalk CG, Peterson DL, Knox KK, Schultz AF, Eddy ML, Che X, Lipkin WI. Cytokine network analysis of cerebrospinal fluid in myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Mol Psychiatry. 2016 Feb;21(2):261-9. doi: 10.1038/mp.2015.29. Epub 2015 Mar 31. PubMed PMID: 25824300.

Research Grants (As P.I.)

  1. Secay Corporation: Community Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic—Testing, Clinical Care, and Vaccine Distribution. Principal Investigator: C. Gunnar Gottschalk, PhD; 2019-2022
  2. NIHR21 Exploratory grant R21NS129021 ATG13: A New Player in ME/CFS Co-Principal Investigator: C. Gunnar Gottschalk, PhD and Avik Roy, PhD; 2023-2025
  3. SOLVE ME Catalyst Award: Low-Dose Rapamycin in ME/CFS and other IACCs. Principal Investigator: C. Gunnar Gottschalk, PhD; 2025-2026.

UWM Land Acknowledgement: We acknowledge in Milwaukee that we are on traditional Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk and Menominee homeland along the southwest shores of Michigami, North America’s largest system of freshwater lakes, where the Milwaukee, Menominee and Kinnickinnic rivers meet and the people of Wisconsin’s sovereign Anishinaabe, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Oneida and Mohican nations remain present.   |   To learn more, visit the Electa Quinney Institute website.