He is a specialist in microbiology and infectious disease epidemiology and has been president of the Robert Koch Institute since 2023.
Schaade began studying human medicine at the Georg August University of Göttingen in 1987 and received his doctorate there in 1994; his dissertation thesis was "Isolation and structural analysis of two cytostatically active gangliosides from mouse macrophages".
In 2000, he passed the examination for specialist in microbiology and infection epidemiology at the Medical Association of North Rhine.
From 2010 to 2023 he was department head of the "Center for Biological Hazards and Special Pathogens (ZBS)" and from 2011 to 2023 vice president of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin.
Following the retirement of Lothar H. Wieler on April 1, 2023, Schaade was initially acting president of the Robert Koch Institute.