Paul Scheet

Paul Scheet, Ph.D. serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology within the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He holds joint appointments in the Departments of Genomic Medicine and Translational Molecular Pathology, and is a member of the UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Scheet leads the CCSG Risk, Detection and Outcomes Program and directs the Cancer Genomics and Statistical Genetics Laboratory.

His research focuses on statistical genetics and cancer genomics, specializing in haplotype-based methods for detecting low-frequency chromosomal alterations in heterogeneous samples. Key applications include early cancer detection, biomarker discovery for cancer risk/progression, and profiling pre-malignant tissues. His lab developed foundational tools like fastPHASE for GWAS imputation and hapLOH for somatic mutation detection.

Dr. Scheet has mentored multiple doctoral students since joining MD Anderson in 2008 and serves on numerous PhD committees across the Texas Medical Center. His work bridges computational methodology development with translational cancer research through active collaborations across genomic medicine and molecular pathology departments.

His career began with work on the Human Genome Project, followed by advanced statistical training that enabled his contributions to population genetics modeling. Current research emphasizes leveraging somatic mutations in normal tissues as biomarkers for cancer risk assessment and early detection strategies.