Marc Schumacher, Ph.D.

Dr. Schumacher was born and raised in the Chicago metropolitan area. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chemistry from Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois in 1986.

After his undergraduate work, Dr. Schumacher continued his studies in Chemistry at the University of Tübingen, Germany. He was inspired to study Biochemistry after a summer of research at the Max Planck Institute for Virus Research in Tübingen. He left Germany to enroll in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in the laboratory of Thomas Schmidhauser, Ph.D.  In 1995 he successfully defended his Ph.D. thesis, entitled “Studies on the regulation of expression of a carotenoid biosynthetic gene, al-1 of Neurospora crassa”.

As a postdoc, Dr. Schumacher characterized a novel osmotic sensory protein of Neurospora crassa in the laboratory of Claude P. Selitrennikoff, Ph.D. at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, Colorado.  Then he joined the laboratory of Dennis R. Voelker, Ph.D. at the National Jewish Medical and Research Center, Denver, Colorado, where he identified a gene involved in the transport of phosphatidylserine to mitochondria in Saccharomyces cerevisiae in 2002.  After this, Dr. Schumacher undertook an industry position as a technical specialist at Invitrogen Corporation in Carlsbad, California.

In 2008, he returned to academic pursuits and joined the laboratory of the late Richard G. W. Anderson, Ph.D. to study mammalian lipid droplet biogenesis at UT Southwestern. After the passing of Dr. Anderson, Dr. Schumacher joined the laboratory of Russell Debose-Boyd, Ph.D. at UT Southwestern, where he revealed the long-time elusive target of geranylgeraniol in the degradation of the cholesterol/isoprenoid biosynthetic enzyme, HMG CoA Reductase.

Graduate School

Southern Illinois University-C (1995), Biochemistry

Graduate School

Southern Illinois University-C (1995), Molecular Biology

• Regulation of isoprenoid and cholesterol metabolism.

Featured Publications

UbiA Prenyltransferase Domain-Containing Protein-1 Modulates HMG CoA Reductase Degradation to Coordinate Synthesis of Sterol and Nonsterol Isoprenoids.

Schumacher MM, Jun DJ, Johnson BM, DeBose-Boyd RA J. Biol. Chem. 2017 Nov

Geranylgeranyl-Regulated Transport of the Prenyltransferase UBIAD1 between Membranes of the ER and Golgi.

Schumacher MM, Jun DJ, Jo Y, Seeman J, DeBose-Boyd RA J. Lipid Res. 2016 Apr

The prenyltransferase UBIAD1 is the target of geranylgeraniol in degradation of HMG CoA reductase.

Schumacher MM, Elsabrouty R, Seemann J, Jo Y, DeBose-Boyd RA Elife 2015 4

Phosphatidylserine transport to the mitochondria is regulated by ubiquitination.

Schumacher MM, Choi JY, Voelker DR J. Biol. Chem. 2002 Dec 277 52 51033-42

The osmotic-1 locus of Neurospora crassa encodes a putative histidine kinase similar to osmosensors of bacteria and yeast.

Schumacher MM, Enderlin CS, Selitrennikoff CP Curr. Microbiol. 1997 Jun 34 6 340-7

Transgene silencing of the al-1 gene in vegetative cells of Neurospora is mediated by a cytoplasmic effector and does not depend on DNA-DNA interactions or DNA methylation.

Cogoni C, Irelan JT, Schumacher M, Schmidhauser TJ, Selker EU, Macino G EMBO J. 1996 Jun 15 12 3153-63

Characterization of al-2, the phytoene synthase gene of Neurospora crassa. Cloning, sequence analysis, and photoregulation.

Schmidhauser TJ, Lauter FR, Schumacher M, Zhou W, Russo VE, Yanofsky C J. Biol. Chem. 1994 Apr 269 16 12060-6