Harmit Singh Malik (born 1973) is an

Indian American Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from India. The terms Asian Indian and East Indian are used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in the United States, who ar ...

evolutionary biologist who is a professor and associate director at the

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, formerly known as the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and also known as Fred Hutch or The Hutch, is a cancer research institute established in 1975 in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington. History ...

. He was awarded the 2022

Genetics Society of America The Genetics Society of America (GSA) is a scholarly membership society of more than 5,500 genetics researchers and educators, established in 1931. The Society was formed from the reorganization of the Joint Genetics Sections of the American Soc ...

Edward Novitski Prize.

Early life and education

Malik earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at the

Indian Institutes of Technology The Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) are a network of engineering and technology institutions in India. Established in 1950, they are under the purview of the Ministry of Education of the Indian Government and are governed by the Inst ...

. He became interested in molecular biology after being taught by K. K. Rao and reading

Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins (born 26 March 1941) is a British evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, zoologist, science communicator and author. He is an Oxford fellow, emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Simonyi Professor for the Publ ...

' ''

The Selfish Gene ''The Selfish Gene'' is a 1976 book on evolution by ethologist Richard Dawkins that promotes the gene-centred view of evolution, as opposed to views focused on the organism and the group. The book builds upon the thesis of George C. Willia ...

''. He moved to the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

for graduate studies, where he worked toward a doctorate in biology. His PhD research considered the evolutionary strategies of retrotransposable elements. In 1999, he moved to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

to join the

, where he worked under the supervision of

Steven Henikoff Steven Henikoff is a scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and an HHMI Investigator. His field of study is chromatin-related transcriptional regulation. He earned his BS in chemistry at the University of Chicago. He earned his P ...

Research and career

Malik is interested in genetic conflict, the competition between genes and proteins with opposing function. This conflict drives evolutionary change. He is also interested in the evolutionary processes that determine how human bodies interact with viruses. For example, together with Lisa Kursel, Malik identified genes at the centre of conflict between cell types in ''

Drosophila virilis ''Drosophila virilis'' is a species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It ...

''. As these processes typically take place over very slow timescales, they are complicated and challenging to unravel. To understand the genetic conflicts that occur between different genomes – and different components of the same genomes – Malik turns to fossils. Viral fossils in animal genomes can be used to monitor intense episodes of gene adaption. Malik has expanded this research field, so-called paleovirology, developing the capabilities to describe the functional outcomes of molecular arms races. Working with

, Malik developed the concept of centromere-drive, a mechanism that explains the unusual genetic conflicts that arise during meiosis. Centromere-drive describes an evolutionary process in which centromeric repeats expand, which results in the recruitment of

kinetochore A kinetochore (, ) is a flared oblique-shaped protein structure associated with duplicated chromatids in eukaryotic cells where the spindle fibers, which can be thought of as the ropes pulling chromosomes apart, attach during cell division to ...

proteins and segregation of the expanded centromere to the egg during female asymmetric meiosis. As associate director at the

, Malik has worked on various initiatives to improve diversity, equity and inclusion. He was awarded the 2022

Edward Novitski Prize for his work on evolution and chromosome biology.

Awards and honors

* 2008

Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers The Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) is the highest honor bestowed by the United States federal government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. T ...

* 2009 Early Career Scientist of the

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization headquartered in Chevy Chase, Maryland with additional facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American busin ...

* 2010 Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science * 2011 Great Immigrants Recipient * 2013 Full Investigator at the

* 2017 Eli Lilly Prize in Microbiology * 2019 Elected member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

* 2022

Edward Novitski Prize

Selected publications

* * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Malik, Harmit 1973 births Living people Indian Institutes of Technology alumni University of Rochester alumni Indian emigrants to the United States Evolutionary biologists Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center people