Christoph Handschin is a Swiss cell biologist at the Biozentrum University of Basel.

Handschin demonstrated that PGC-1 α centrally steers the adaptive mechanisms of the muscle during endurance training.

PGC-1α increases the endurance capacity of the muscle by among other things regulating the formation and degradation of lactate.

[3] Furthermore, Handschin discovered that an elevated PGC-1α production manifests a therapeutic effect on muscle wasting and dystrophies.

Moreover, the insights gained on the Regulation of heme biosynthesis were highly relevant for the understanding of porphyria.