Harmit Singh Malik

Harmit S. Malik is co-associate director of the Basic sciences division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and an affiliate professor of genome sciences at University of Washington. Malik studies the causes and consequences of genetic conflicts that take place between different genomes or between components of the same genome. He is interested in understanding these "molecular arms races" and how they drive recurrent genetic innovation, from the perspective of both evolutionary biology and human disease. His lab is currently working on several rapidly evolving projects—including centromeres and heterochromatin, nuclear import and variant histones, and innate defense strategies against retroviruses. 

He holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Rochester and is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.