Dr Rupert K Schmidt-Ullrich, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Medical College of Virginia Campus of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), also holds appointments as Associate Director of the VCU Massey Cancer Center and Professor of the VCU Department of Pharmacology. Throughout his career, he has pursued molecular radiation research while maintaining a clinical presence in the radiotherapeutic management of breast and head and neck cancers.
Dr Schmidt-Ullrich completed his medical and molecular biological studies at the University of Heidelberg in 1971. During his research fellowships at the Max-Planck-Society in Germany and the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, he developed his interest in molecular membrane biology with emphasis on membrane proteins. After completing his clinical fellowship in radiation oncology at the University of Essen (Germany), the Tufts-New England Medical Center, the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Massachusetts General Hospital, he pursued research in basic molecular radiation biology and clinical radiation oncology at the New England Medical Center, where he held positions of Research Division Director and Vice-Chairman of Therapeutic Radiology. Since his move to the Medical College of Virginia in 1988, Dr Schmidt-Ullrich has built a research program that focuses on elucidating cellular responses to ionizing radiation and on understanding the molecular mechanisms of radioresistance, placing particular emphasis on radiation damage signaling by DNA and proteins. Some of these research findings are being translated toward clinical application. His research on radiation-induced receptor activation has uncovered mechanisms of radiation-induced accelerated repopulation, a major cause for radiotherapeutic treatment failures of head and neck and other cancers, findings that support the blocking of EGFR function for radiosensitization.
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