During this 2018 American Cytogenetics Conference we celebrate our Distinguished Cytogeneticist, Dr. Stuart Schwartz. Stuart was raised in Philadelphia and was very happy to see his beloved Eagles go all the way this year! He received his BS degree from the Pennsylvania State University and a MS degree in chemistry from St. Joseph’s University. Quickly deciding that he did not want to be a bench chemist, he chose to be trained in a medical science and Cytogenetics seemed to be a good fit. He received his PhD from the Indiana University School of Medicine under the direction of Dr. Catherine Palmer, the 2002 Distinguished Cytogeneticist awardee. In 1982, Stuart took a postdoctoral position with Maimon Cohen who had just been recruited to The University of Maryland at Baltimore (UMAB) Medical Center as the founding Director of the Division of Human Genetics. Thus, Stuart’s postdoctoral training consisted of setting up and running a new Clinical Cytogenetics laboratory. It was a natural progression that Stuart took over officially as the Director of the UMAB Clinical Cytogenetics laboratory when his “training” period ended and he received his American Board of Medical Genetics certifications in Clinical Cytogenetics and Medical Genetics. He remained at UMAB as an Assistant and then Associate Professor of Ob/GYN and Pediatrics. During his tenure at UMAB, Stuart was astute enough to recognize the clinical utility of the new technique that we affectionately call FISH. He arranged for Dan Pinkel to hold the first workshop on FISH methodology so that others could learn from the originator. He quickly instituted this new technology into his clinical and research laboratories and worked with a small nascent company, Vysis, to help to develop relevant FISH probes. Stuart was recruited by Huntington Willard to Case Western University to be one of the founding faculty of the Department of Genetics. He inherited a wonderful Clinical Cytogenetics laboratory and under his tutorage, this clinical service grew exponentially to include FISH and Molecular Genetics. Here he mentored numerous Fellows in Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics, wisely encouraging his trainees to obtain certification in both. After a brief time as professor of Human Genetics, Medicine, and Pathology at the University of Chicago, he moved to the Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp) to take a position as the strategic director of Cytogenetics, which allowed him to continue with academic pursuits in educating clinicians and amassing large datasets to better understand chromosome aberrations to assist with patient care. He has recently taken over as the Senior Director of Cytogenetics at LabCorp.
Stuart is the consummate academic clinician/educator, contributing greatly to the field of Cytogenetics through his clinical service, educational endeavors and his research. Stuart’s entire career has been dedicated to providing high quality clinical services for patients. He has been a Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics laboratory director for over 30 years, providing full service constitutional and oncology studies. Stuart has also always been interested in the structure and function of chromosomes, initially using FISH analysis for characterization and more recently microarray analysis. His translational research characterizing aberrant chromosomes in patients, including the study of marker chromosomes, neocentromeres and cryptic rearrangements, has led to the publication of 181 peer reviewed publications and 24 invited chapters. Numerous graduate students, postdoctoral fellows in Clinical Cytogenetics and Clinical Molecular genetics and genetic counseling students have been mentored by Stuart. During the past 9 years, he has been involved in the development and improvement of SNP microarray technology and local implementation of this technology in pediatric, prenatal and oncology testing at LabCorp. This involvement has led to his strong advocacy for the global acceptance of microarray as a routine technology in the laboratory.
Stuart has also served the greater community of Cytogenetics including his tenures on several professional boards. He was a Cytogenetics representative to Board of Directors and a Past President of the American Board of Medical Genetics. He was on the Board of Directors and is the former President of the Cancer Genomics Consortium. Stuart served as the Cytogenetics section editor for both the American Journal of Medical Genetics and for Genetics in Medicine and has been a reviewer for numerous journals.
Stuart not only found his perfect career choice in Indianapolis but also found his life partner, Sharon, his wife of 39 years. Sharon, is an assistant director of a Dietetic internship program with the food management company, Sodexo. They have two married children, Rachel and Matthew. Rachel and Alan have been married for 10 years. Matthew and Miriam will soon be celebrating their first anniversary. Both of Stuart’s children inherited his love of education. Rachel earned a Master’s degree in early childhood education and is currently a preschool teacher at the Norwood school, a private school in Maryland. Matthew obtained a PhD in Genetics and is a lecturer at Simmons College, in Boston. Stuart could also be awarded the Distinguished Father Award. His passion has always been his family and although he was always busy with is career he never missed a school event, extracurricular activity, or Hebrew school event for the kids.
It is truly an honor and a pleasure to witness such a humble and worthy colleague and friend being recognized with the Distinguished Cytogeneticist Award. Submitted by Daynna J. Wolff and Jim Tepperberg
Awards