Salk recruits human geneticist Graham McVicker

May 28, 2015

Salk recruits human geneticist Graham McVicker

May 28, 2015

LA JOLLA–Expanding on its leadership in genetics, the Salk Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Graham McVicker as an assistant professor in the Center for Integrative Biology and in the Laboratory of Genetics.

“Graham is a forward-thinking researcher with an impressive background in developing and harnessing innovative techniques to help unravel the human genome,” says 鲁斯蒂·盖奇, acting president of the Institute. “Understanding and analyzing human genetic diversity is crucial to both science and medicine, and Graham’s breadth of expertise in computing and genetics will spur important innovations in these areas.”

McVicker will join the Salk Institute in January 2016. He seeks to understand how human genetic variation affects molecular processes in the cell and contributes to disease.

Geneticists have cataloged millions of genetic differences between individuals, but it is difficult to determine which of them affect human traits such as height, blood pressure and disease risk. McVicker has begun to tackle this problem by developing powerful statistical and computational approaches to analyze the human genome and determine the molecular function of individual genetic variants.

McVicker is particularly interested in genetic variants that affect chromatin. Chromatin is the molecular packaging that organizes DNA and regulates access to the genome, which helps control which genes are turned on in specific cells. Genetic variants that affect chromatin are likely to be important for many human diseases and the McVicker laboratory will focus specifically on those that affect chromatin in immune cells. By understanding these variants and linking them to disease risk, his laboratory will illuminate why some individuals are more susceptible to autoimmune and infectious diseases.

“I plan to push the boundaries of quantitative genetics and use genetic variation as a tool to understand the molecular processes that underlie human disease,” says McVicker. “I am excited to join the world-renowned faculty at the Salk Institute, where I will have the intellectual freedom, resources and collaborations to make important contributions in these areas.”

McVicker earned his BS from the University of British Columbia in computer science and PhD from the University of Washington in genome sciences, where he studied how selection and mutation shape genetic variation in primate evolution. More recently, he conducted postdoctoral research at the 芝加哥大学, Stanford University 和 Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he developed new methods for genetic mapping of molecular quantitative traits.

关于索尔克生物研究所：
索尔克生物学研究所是世界顶尖的基础研究机构之一，其国际知名的教职员工在一个独特的、合作和富有创造力的环境中，探索生命科学的基本问题。索尔克科学家致力于科学发现和培养下一代研究人员，通过对神经科学、遗传学、细胞和植物生物学以及相关学科的研究，在癌症、衰老、阿尔茨海默病、糖尿病和传染病等领域取得了开创性的贡献，加深了我们对这些疾病的理解。.

教职员工的成就获得了无数荣誉，包括诺贝尔奖和美国国家科学院院士资格。该研究所由脊髓灰质炎疫苗先驱 Jonas Salk 医生于 1960 年创立，是一家独立的非营利组织和建筑地标。.