Schmitt, Danielle L.

Short Biography

Dr. Schmitt obtained her B.S. in chemistry and biochemistry from Ball State University, where she was a Lewis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) Scholar. She obtained her Ph.D. in biochemistry at University of Maryland Baltimore County with Professor Songon An. Her doctoral work was on identifying mechanisms for formation of multienzyme complexes formed by metabolic enzymes. She was a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at University of California San Diego with Professor Jin Zhang. There, she used genetically encoded reporters for kinase activity to study subcellular regulation of cellular signal transduction. Dr. Schmitt joined the UCLA faculty in 2022. The focus of her laboratory is developing new genetically encoded tools which can be used to study metabolic events in single cells.

Research Interests

The Schmitt Lab is focused on answering the question: How does the cell organize essential processes like metabolism and signaling to coordinate cell function and fate? To answer this question, the Schmitt Lab takes a multi-disciplinary approach to identify mechanisms for sub-cellular compartmentation of metabolic processes, including signaling networks regulating metabolism and metabolites. We develop genetically encoded fluorescent protein-based biosensors to study cellular activity in single cells in real time with high spatial and temporal resolution using live cell fluorescence microscopy. We use these biosensors to (1) study kinase signaling networks which regulate metabolic processes and (2) interrogate sub-cellular dynamics of metabolites. We are interested in understanding how metabolism is spatiotemporally regulated in the cell, and how diseases of metabolic origin, like cancer and inborn errors of metabolism perturb this regulation.