Michael Schmidt did his Ph.D. research in molecular medicine and biochemistry within the Life Sciences Division at NASA Ames Research Center, where he also completed a fellowship in neuroelectrophysiology. He has studied neuroscience and metabolomics at Lancaster University (UK), and works closely with the medical and bioinformatics groups at the Manchester Centre for Integrative Systems Biology (U Manchester, UK). He is a co-founder of Sovaris Neurosystems, LLC, which develops novel algorithms, signal processing tools, and instrumentation focused on EEG, EMG, ECG coherence to aid in human performance and disease state recovery. Dr. Schmidt also founded Sovaris Aerospace, LLC, a space biomedicine consulting group, working with the commercial and government human spaceflight initiatives. In addition, he is a member of the VitalSpace working group, a NASA-based consortium developing medical bioinformatic systems for commercial space passengers and earth-based medical systems.
Dr. Schmidt has spent some 20 years in the health care field, developing clinical training programs and training physicians in metabolic medicine applied to a broad spectrum of disease and performance states. This includes development of video “narrowcast” platforms, used for physician and patient education, over web-based and mobile media. Dr. Schmidt currently teaches in the Metabolism and Functional Medicine program sponsored by the University of South Florida, where he lectures on metabolic networks, systems theory, and clinical chemistry. For two decades, he has also worked in the field of biotechnology, focused on discovery and product development rooted in biochemistry, metabolomics, functional genomics, and systems biology. This work includes in vitro discovery design, in vivo pre-clinical study design, clinical trial design, technical manual development, licensing, brand development, marketing strategy development, sales training, physician training, and marketing presentations.
In this capacity, he has advised both large companies, small companies, and emerging companies through reassessment of their strategic positioning (both science and marketing). Among the large companies are Roche Diagnostics, one of the world’s largest in vitro diagnostic companies and a division of the Roche Group, ranked among Fortune’s top 200 global companies. While working with Roche, he co-directed a program aimed at developing a metabolic therapeutics platform for people with diabetes. He also helped evaluate selected potential intellectual property (IP) acquisitions for Roche.
Dr. Schmidt also helped launch Primus Pharmaceuticals, now a successful private company focused on metabolic therapies, co-founded by former Procter & Gamble and McKesson senior executives. In various capacities, he has represented firms in negotiations with companies such as Bayer, Proctor & Gamble, Colgate, Wyeth, Ross Laboratories (Division of Abbott Labs), Schering-Plough, ADM, CVS Drug, and others. Dr. Schmidt has experience in development and negotiation of licenses across the biotechnology industry.
From 2004-2005, Dr. Schmidt was part of a working group at the National Institutes of Health reviewing validation models for biological response modifiers. In 2004, he was part of a working group dealing directly with the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) in drafting new guidelines for adverse event reporting related to nutritional supplements, medical foods, and OTC drugs. In the mid-1990s, he was involved in submitting suggested guidelines to the FDA for the proposed rule making for medical foods under the proposed modifications of the medical food act.
Dr. Schmidt has authored several books in the health care field. The most recent of these is Beyond Antibiotics: Strategies for Living in a World of Emerging Infections and Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria, released by Random House in 2009. This book addresses the crisis in emerging infections and antibiotic resistance, coupled with the shrinking pharmaceutical pipeline of new antibiotic drugs.
Dr. Schmidt is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, the Metabolomics Society, and the Epigenetics Society. He lives in Boulder, Colorado.