Professor David Schwartz, a Bronx native, has been working in the field of genomic analysis since 1975, when he was...
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Professor David Schwartz, a Bronx native, has been working in the field of genomic analysis since 1975, when he was an undergraduate at Hampshire College in Amherst Massachusetts. During his senior year, he worked in a Harvard University laboratory using viscoelastic measurements to determine the sizes of a series of eukaryotic genomes. There, he conceived a radical approach for the electrophoretic separation of very large DNA molecules, which at the time was poorly received. After starting graduate school at University of California-San Diego, under the mentorship of Professor Bruno Zimm, he was able to further develop this concept. A transfer to Columbia University, under the mentorship of Professor Charles Cantor, enabled the creation of Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis, and a series of publications, which help to establish the basis for the recently completed Human Genome Initiative. Upon graduation from Columbia University (Dept. of Chemistry), Professor Schwartz became the first Staff Associate at The Carnegie Institution of Washington, Dept. of Embryology, who did not have prior post-doctoral experience. There he pioneered single molecule techniques to study DNA polymer dynamics during electrophoresis. In 1989, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at New York University, New York, and was later given an adjunct appointment in the Computer Science Department (Courant Institute for the Mathematical Sciences). At New York University, he developed the Optical Mapping System, which is the first practical single molecule approach for whole genome analysis. In 1999, Professor Schwartz, moved his laboratory to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he was made a Full Professor in the departments of Genetics, Chemistry, and the UW Biotechnology Center. At UW, Professor Schwartz’s laboratory is developing new single molecule platforms for whole genome analysis, through the concerted understanding and exploitation of novel polymer effects within confined geometries. These new findings are embraced within an integrated high-throughput environment to address important biological questions regarding basic genomic structural, and functional issues in normal and cancer genomes, as well as addressing the need for the high-resolution analysis of populations to foster effective association studies.
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