Co-inventor of gene sequencer joins UW Chemistry

By Vince Stricherz
News & Information

A heralded analytical chemist whose research team co-invented the gene sequencer used to map the human genome has moved his laboratory to the UW’s chemistry department.

Norman Dovichi and six members of his team (three graduate students and three post-doctoral researchers) have made the switch to the UW from Canada’s University of Alberta in Edmonton.

Chemistry Professor Norman Dovichi examines equipment going into his new laboratory at the UW, where he recently moved from the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

His main criteria for such a move, he said, were that an institution have a strong analytical chemistry tradition and be near a good medical school. The UW clearly fills the bill on both counts. In addition it offers numerous opportunities for collaboration, both on campus and in the large number of science-related companies in the Seattle area.

“The work that I do is as interdisciplinary as it comes,” Dovichi said. “It has hints of chemistry, biology, microbiology and engineering all mixed together.”

Dovichi’s group in Edmonton published its research on the second-generation gene sequencer at virtually the same time as a group from Hitachi Ltd. of Tokyo. The result was an instrument that could determine the arrangement of genes within the human genome. Scientists at Celera Genomics Group of Rockville, Md., used that sequencer to produce the genetic map that came from the Human Genome Project.

That gene sequencer was a successor to one developed at the California Institute of Technology by a team headed by Leroy Hood before he came to the UW. John Aitchison, an Edmonton colleague of Dovichi’s, has been recruited by the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, which Hood established when he left the UW last year.

Now that the gene-sequencing project is virtually complete, Dovichi will focus on developing tools for the next step - high-speed and high-sensitivity protein analysis. In one project his group is developing a fully automated protein analysis instrument. In another, his group is studying the proteins from a single cancer cell to identify prognostic markers that can guide therapy. He hopes to find a number of local collaborators, including researchers at Hood’s institute.

Dovichi is a Chicago native who attended Northern Illinois University and did graduate work at the University of Utah. He spent two years as a researcher at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in New Mexico (now Los Alamos National Lab), then taught for four years at the University of Wyoming before spending 14 years at the University of Alberta.

He got to know UW chemistry faculty in 1999 when he delivered a seminar on campus. A glowing reaction from faculty members - particularly those outside analytical chemistry - was key for chemistry chairman Paul Hopkins to pursue Dovichi.

“Analytical chemistry is the unsung hero in the field of chemistry because those researchers find methods to solve problems rather than working directly on the problems,” Hopkins said.

Dovichi said that the availability of research money was one reason he wanted to move back to the United States. In Edmonton, he received some support from the U.S. government, but noted such support is difficult for foreign researchers to obtain. In addition, the three main Canadian agencies that finance scientific research have a combined budget less than the UW’s total federal grants and contracts, which last year exceeded $600 million. (The UW is the No. 1 public university in terms of federal research funding and No. 2 overall behind Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.)

In addition to research, Dovichi also is looking forward to his teaching duties. Next quarter he will offer a graduate-level course in bioanalytical chemistry.

“I teach whatever I can, whatever is assigned to me,” he said. “Here I’ll be teaching some graduate courses and, hopefully, the freshman course.”