Dear Colleagues,

This past Friday, Oct. 19, the University of Washington Board of Regents approved the consolidation of the Department of Genetics in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Department of Molecular Biotechnology in the School of Medicine. The merger creates the new Department of Genomic Sciences in the School of Medicine.

Stan Fields, noted for developing the two-hybrid system to analyze protein interactions, is the acting chair. He is working with Maynard Olson (molecular biotechnology) and Breck Byers (genetics), both of whom played leadership roles in launching this venture.

The new Department of Genome Sciences creates an organizational unit necessary for the UW to build quickly and thoughtfully on its strengths in genetics and genomics. This will be done through coordinated faculty and facilities development, research, and graduate and undergraduate education within the department, as well as through interdisciplinary endeavors with other departments.

Genomic advances influence the activities of many UW academic units. To this effort, faculty from the former Department of Genetics bring internationally recognized research on genomic analysis of model organisms – selected bacteria, yeast, nematodes, and fruit flies. This month geneticist Lee Hartwell was jointly named a winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for work on yeast genes that control the cell cycle and maintain genetic stability. Faculty from the Department of Genetics also bring to the new department strong basic science programs using whole-genome approaches in mouse, human and parasite biology.

The Molecular Biotechnology faculty contributes additional expertise in studying human-genetic variations, in designing analytical technologies, and creating mathematical models. They have developed and applied many tools to explore the frontiers of biology and medicine. Moreover, Molecular Biotechnology faculty have reached out to school children to prepare them to make informed decisions about future genomic advances . The Molecular Biotechnology faculty comes from many fields – chemistry, engineering, physics, computer sciences, statistics, and mathematics, as well as biology and medicine.

Genetics and Molecular Biotechnology faculty both bring leading programs in computational molecular biology to this merger.

The excellence and broad expertise of the two faculties joining in the new department, and the multidisciplinary nature of much of their work, hold much promise in furthering the outstanding genomics research and education under way at the UWAMC.

Paul Ramsey, M.D.
Vice President for Medical Affairs
And Dean of the School of Medicine