Elizabeth Schmitz

Program: Immunology

Current advisor: Megan A. Cooper, MD, PhD

Undergraduate university: University of Pittsburgh, 2020

Enrollment year: 2022

Research summary
Using computational and cell biology techniques to gain a better understanding somatic variants in the human immune system.

I͛’m interested in using single-cell technology and cell biology approaches to understand the impact of somatic variants on immune dysregulation. I am interested in understanding how somatic variants shape the function of the immune system. I study patients that do not appear to have any germline cause of immune dysregulation to see if they have somatic variants that create similar clinical phenotypes or completely different clinical phenotypes compared to germline disease. The goal of my research is to diagnose patients with immune dysregulation more precisely to allow for more targeted treatment approaches.

Graduate publications