Dr. Kasmintan Schrader received her medical degree from the University of Melbourne (2003), and completed her residency in Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Dr Schrader undertook the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Clinician Investigator Program to undertake graduate studies in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine to investigate the association between germline mutations in CDH1 and lobular breast cancer. Her PhD work evolved to include use of next-generation sequencing technology to identify Mendelian disease genes.

She was subsequently awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health and Research training award to pursue her interests in using next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology to determine novel susceptibility genes in familial colon cancer as a research fellow at MSKCC. Dr Schrader utilized NGS to co-discover PAX5 as a novel susceptibility gene to Pre-B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. She has also utilized NGS to analyze DNA of multiple primary tumors in parallel with the germline DNA and successfully determined the underlying cancer susceptibility in the patient. In addition to looking for novel susceptibility genes, in view of the rapid sequencing advances in oncology, Dr. Schrader’s research involves assessing the scope and impact of incidental findings identified in the course of next generation sequencing in the research and clinical setting.