After graduating from Creighton with a doctorate in medical microbiology and immunology in August, Amber Schmidtke was ready to pursue her dream of saving lives – so she applied for one of the most competitive postdoctoral fellowships in the country.
Schmidtke has been selected as one of nine fellows in the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory Research Fellowship Program, a two-year fellowship headquartered at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta where doctoral-level scientists conduct research to prepare for careers in public health.
“The goal of the fellowship program in general is to find the future public health officials for America, both in-state and local public-health labs and at the federal level for the CDC,” Schmidtke said.
“There’s a real shortage right now in public health workers, so that’s what they’re looking for.”
Nancy Hanson, associate professor with the School of Medicine’s Center for Research in Anti-Infectives and Biotechnology, trained Schmidtke as a graduate student and said the fellowship at the CDC is very prestigious.
“I know that the competition was from a lot of different types of school, including Harvard and other very prestigious schools, and a Creighton student was the one accepted,” Hanson said.
“It’s the Center for Disease Control where very important epidemiology research takes place for the entire country – and in some cases the world.”
Schmidtke will begin her fellowship in January.
She said she will be analyzing strains of whooping cough or pertussis, that have been collected since 1936 and trying to find a similarity in the strains that cause outbreaks over time.
Having written and defended her doctoral dissertation on the molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance in the pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is bacteria that affects cystic fibrosis patients, Schmidtke said she’s excited to work with another respiratory disease and gain epidemiology experience in how to monitor and prevent an outbreak.
“My goal is to at one point unite my experience with antibiotic resistance research with epidemiological research and hopefully be able to track outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant pathogens,” Schmidtke said.
Until January, Schmidtke is acting as a short-term postdoctoral fellow under Hanson.
“Training her was a pleasure,” Hanson said. “She was always receptive to new ideas and experimental methods, and as she matured as a scientist she became more independent trying out her own ideas in a laboratory.”
Schmidtke said she hopes to eventually gain full-time employment in the antibiotic-resistance sector of the CDC, or to at least remain in the public health field.
“I just feel like certain people are meant to be doctors; certain people are meant to be scientists,” Schmidtke said.
“My ultimate goal is to save lives regardless of what setting I’m doing that in – the ability to do it in the research side gives me the ability to save as many lives as possible given my training.”
Schmidtke’s goals correspond with the CDC’s core value of accountability, which is found on its Web site.
“As diligent stewards of public trust and public funds, we act decisively and compassionately in service to the people’s health. We ensure that our research and our services are based on sound science and meet real public needs to achieve our public health goals.”