Andrew G. Clark

Clark made many contributions to human genetics through comparative genomics and the genetic dissection of complex, multigenic traits. He identified the ApoE lipoprotein lipase gene as a risk factor for heart disease, and he tracked the evolution of G6PD in malaria resistance. His research has also included identifying genes that have undergone natural selection in the evolution of humans from chimpanzees, and the role of population bottlenecks in elevating the frequency of deleterious genes in European populations. Andrew also discovered how to analyze heterochromatic genes in unassembled sequence traces, and carried out studies of complex multigenic traits in Drosophila, including metabolic regulation, sperm competition, and bacterial resistance.