Successes

Core Faculty

Silke Schmidt, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Section of Medical Genetics, Department of Medicine. She currently directs a large-scale genetic-epidemiologic study of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease) in US veterans, in collaboration with researchers at the Durham VA Medical Center. This study focuses on examining the role of gene-environment interaction in sporadic ALS. She is also interested in the evaluation and improvement of statistical methods for linkage and association analysis using simulated data, with an emphasis on methods to assess gene-environment interactions in complex late-onset disorders. In addition, she is involved in genetic studies of age-related macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis, and rare thrombotic and autoimmune disorders associated with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome. Dr. Schmidt was a CHG postdoctoral fellow from 1999-2001.

PhD, 1999, Department of Statistics, University of Dortmund, Germany

Selected Publications

Age-Related Macular Degeneration
Haines, Jonathan L., Hauser, Michael A., Schmidt, Silke, Scott, William K., Olson, Lana M., Gallins, Paul, Spencer, Kylee L., Kwan, Shu Ying, Noureddine, Maher, Gilbert, John R., Schnetz-Boutaud, Nathalie, Agarwal, Anita, Postel, Eric A., Pericak-Vance, Margaret A. Complement Factor H Variant Increases the Risk of Age-Related Macular Degeneration Science 2005 308: 419-421.

Schmidt S, Scott WK, Postel EA, Agarwal A, Hauser ER, De La Paz MA, Gilbert JR, Weeks DE, Gorin MB, Haines JL, Pericak-Vance MA. Ordered subset linkage analysis supports a susceptibility locus for age-related macular degeneration on chromosome 16p12. BMC Genetics 5:18, 2004.

Kenealy SJ, Schmidt S, Agarwal A, Postel EA, De La Paz MA, Pericak-Vance MA, Haines JL. Linkage analysis for age-related macular degeneration supports a gene on chromosome 10q26. Molecular Vision 10: 57-61, 2004.

Schmidt S, Postel EA, Agarwal A, Allen Jr IC, Walters SN, De La Paz MA, Scott WK, Haines JL, Pericak-Vance MA, Gilbert JR. Detailed analysis of allelic variation in the ABCA4 gene in age-related maculopathy. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science 44: 2868-2875, 2003.

Schmidt S, Klaver C, Saunders AM, Postel EA, De La Paz MA, Agarwal A, Small K, Udar N, Ong J, Chalukya M, Nesburn A, Kenny C, Domurath R, Hogan M, Mah T, Conley Y, Ferrell R, Weeks D, de Jong P, van Duijn C, Haines JL, Pericak-Vance MA. A pooled case-control study of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene in age-related maculopathy. Ophthalmic Genet 23(4):209-23, 2002.

Multiple Sclerosis
Kenealy SJ, Babron M-C, Bradford Y, Schnetz-Boutaud N, Rimmler JB, Schmidt S, Pericak-Vance et al. A second-generation genomic screen for multiple sclerosis. Am J Hum Genet. 2004 Dec;75(6):1070-8. Epub 2004 Oct 19.

Schmidt S, Barcellos LF, DeSombre K, Rimmler JB, Lincoln RR, Bucher P, Saunders AM, Lai E, Martin ER, Vance JM, Oksenberg JR, Hauser SL, Pericak-Vance MA, Haines JL for the Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Group. Association of polymorphisms in the APOE region with susceptibility to and progression of multiple sclerosis. Am J Hum Genet. 2002 March; 70(3): 708–717. Epub 2002 Feb 11.

Statistical Methods
Schmidt MA, Hauser ER, Martin ER, Schmidt S. Extension of the SIMLA package for generating pedigrees with complex inheritance patterns: Environmental covariates, gene-gene and gene-environment interaction Statistical Applications in Genetics and Molecular Biology: Vol. 4: No. 1, Article 15, 2005.

Schmidt S, Shao Y, Hauser ER, Slifer SH, Martin ER, Scott WK, Speer MC, Pericak-Vance MA. Life after the screen: Making sense of many p-values. Genetic Epidemiology 21 (Suppl.): S546-S551, 2001.

Schmidt S, Schaid DJ. Potential misinterpretation of the case-only study to assess gene- environment interaction. American Journal of Epidemiology 150(8):878-885, 1999.

Breast Cancer
Becher H, Schmidt S, Chang-Claude J. Reproductive factors and familial predisposition for breast cancer by age 50 years. A case-control family study for assessing main effects and possible gene-environment interaction. International Journal of Epidemiology 32: 38-48, 2003.

Contact at:
Center for Human Genetics
DUMC Box 3445
Durham, NC 27710
Phone: 1-919-684-0624
Fax: 1-919-684-0925
E-mail: silke.schmidt@duke.edu

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