Seraina Schmid took sabbatical from her attending position as a Surgical Gynecologic Oncologist in Basel, Switzerland to pursue postdoctoral research at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. At Stanford, Seraina was in the joint laboratory of Drs. Irving Weissman and Nelson Tang trying to isolate ovarian cancer stem cells from human ovarian tumors. She teamed with the Thoracic Oncology Laboratory in a collaborative effort to isolate human cancer stem cells.
Prior to commencing her career in medicine, Seraina completed a degree in economics from the Berufs Akademie of Heidenheim, Germany. She received her MD from the University of Ulm in Germany and then moved to Switzerland to complete her residency in obstetrics and gynecology. In 2001, she began her current attending position at the University Hospital of Basel, Switzerland.