Dr. Thomas Schmittgen stands as a distinguished leader in pharmaceutical sciences with profound expertise in molecular biology and drug development. He currently serves as the Chair of Pharmaceutics and holds the prestigious V. Ravi Chandran Professorship of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy. A graduate of The Ohio State University with both his Bachelor of Science in Pharmacy and Doctorate in Pharmaceutics, Dr. Schmittgen completed his National Institutes of Health-funded postdoctoral training in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Southern California. His distinguished career spans multiple academic leadership positions including faculty appointments at Washington State University College of Pharmacy from 1995 to 2002 and The Ohio State University where he served as chair of the Division of Pharmaceutics from 2000 to 2015 before joining the University of Florida in 2015 through their Preeminence Initiative.
Dr. Schmittgen's seminal contribution to scientific methodology came with his co-authorship of the groundbreaking 2001 paper describing the relative method of gene quantification, which has been cited over 105,000 times and was ranked by Nature in 2014 as the 21st most cited scientific article of all time. His research program has pioneered innovative approaches in noncoding RNA biology with particular emphasis on microRNAs as both therapeutic agents and diagnostic biomarkers for cancer. This work has established fundamental methodologies now universally adopted across biological laboratories worldwide for precise gene expression analysis. The transformative impact of his quantitative techniques has accelerated discoveries in numerous fields including oncology, pharmacology, and molecular diagnostics, enabling researchers to measure subtle genetic changes with unprecedented accuracy.
As a recognized authority in his field, Dr. Schmittgen has been honored as a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and received the TechColumbus Innovation Award for Inventor of the Year. His laboratory continues to advance the frontiers of RNA therapeutics with particular focus on extracellular vesicles and exosomes as delivery vehicles for microRNA-based cancer treatments. Through his leadership as department chair and his extensive mentorship of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, he has shaped the next generation of pharmaceutical scientists. Dr. Schmittgen's ongoing research seeks to translate molecular discoveries into clinically viable therapeutic strategies, maintaining his position at the forefront of pharmaceutical innovation with potential to revolutionize cancer diagnosis and treatment worldwide.
