[2][3] Schlegel met his future wife, Susan Banks-Schlegel, in the microbiology laboratory in which he worked after his first year at Northwestern University.
However, after working at a microbiology laboratory at Northwestern University the summer after his first year, he decided instead to enroll in the MD-PhD program.
After graduating, Schlegel went to Harvard University in 1975 to serve his residency and perform postdoctoral research in pathology.
In 1995, they published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that demonstrated that their vaccine could protect against a virus like that seen in cervical cancer.
He currently is working to create an inexpensive and easily transported version of the HPV vaccine for use in developing countries, where deaths from cervical cancer are most prevalent.