The Genetics Society of America awarded Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center evolutionary biologist Dr. Harmit Malik one of the society’s top honors, the Edward Novitski Prize, for extraordinary creativity and intellectual ingenuity in genetics research. Established in memory of pioneering geneticist Dr. Edward Novitski, the prize recognizes a single experimental accomplishment or a significant and exceptionally creative body of work that solves a difficult problem in genetics.
Novitski was a lifelong GSA member who used fruit flies to study the mechanics of chromosomes.
“I am incredibly humbled by this award, especially as I have been inspired by Ed Novitski’s formative work on genetic conflicts,” Malik said. “This is an individual award, which would never have happened were it not for the creative geneticists who have trained me and trained with me.”
Untangling genetic conflict
Malik, an associate co-director of the Basic Sciences Division and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, studies genetic conflict, in which two genes jockey for dominance. The two genes locked in this evolutionary arms race may battle across species or within an individual organism.
