Our Science – Schmidt Website

Laura S. Schmidt, Ph.D.

Urologic Oncology Branch Staff Scientist (Contr) National Cancer Institute Bldg10 CRC Rm1-3961 10 Center Drive MSC1107 Bethesda, MD 20892 Phone:   301-402-4707 Fax:   301-402-0922 E-Mail:   schmidtl@mail.nih.gov

Biography

Dr. Schmidt obtained her Ph.D. degree in biochemistry from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She held postdoctoral fellowships at Indiana University under Dr. Howard Guest, and at Boston College under Dr. Joseph Orlando. She was a Medical Foundation scholar at Tufts University Medical School in Boston in the laboratory of Dr. James T. Park. Dr. Schmidt was employed at the NCI as a member of the Laboratory of Immunobiology from 1990 to 2005, and recently joined the Urologic Oncology Branch, NCI, NIH. Her research is aimed at the identification of renal cancer susceptibility genes through the study of families with inherited renal cell carcinoma.

Research

Dr. Schmidt's research is focused on the identification of new renal cancer susceptibility genes through the study of families with inherited renal cell carcinoma. She was part of the NCI research teams that cloned the VHL tumor suppressor gene, identified germline c-MET proto-oncogene mutations in patients with hereditary papillary renal carcinoma type I, and recently identified mutations in a novel gene, BHD, that predispose to increased renal neoplasia in the Birt-Hogg-Dube' syndrome. Currently she is studying the Birt-Hogg-Dube' (BHD) protein, encoded by the BHD gene, to determine how the mutant protein contributes to the development of renal tumors. Dr. Schmidt is participating in recruitment of new renal cancer families in order to perform genome-wide linkage analysis to identify new renal cancer-causing genes. She is involved in the development and phenotype evaluation of several mouse models of renal cancer including conditional knockout of the VHL gene and conditional knockout of the BHD gene.

This page was last updated on 9/23/2008.