Assistant Professor, Division of Endocrinology, Department of Medicine, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine
- PhD, University of California, Berkeley , CA
- MD, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, CO
- 2008 Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute Pilot and Feasibility Grant Award
- 2008-Present National Institutes of Health, Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health (BIRCWH) K12 Award
"I have been interested in biological research since I was a child looking at organisms in creek water under the microscope with my father. I initially went to graduate school for a PhD and started in very basic biological research. I soon discovered that my real interest was in research with a direct impact on people’s health and returned to school for my MD. As a physician, I found that I was especially interested in endocrinology, the study of the hormones that keep the different parts of the body and the environment in sync. As a clinical endocrinologist I see the toll that diabetes takes on a person every day. The knowledge that studying how diabetes causes the system to break (and how future discoveries might fix things) could possibly help so many people, including my patients, is a big factor that motivates me to pursue my current research."
What is the Research Goal?
Dr. Schauer’s research goal is to improve our ability to prevent heart disease in women with diabetes and to also help understand how to extend that protection after menopause.
Understanding the Research
Diabetes is not just a disease of sugar control, but also one of regulation of fat metabolism. Dr. Schauer’s current research focuses on the effects of fatty acids in the blood on the heart and blood vessels. Her research is aimed at understanding more about why diabetes increases the risk of cardiovascular disease to such a great extent in order to know how to prevent it. Dr. Schauer’s research could add to this understanding and suggest new approaches to decreasing the risk of heart disease in the increasing number of people with diabetes.