Current Lecturer
Evan E. Eichler is Associate Professor and Howard Hughes Fellow in the Department of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. An estimated five percent of the human genome contains duplicated sequences of genes. The Eichler laboratory focuses on the role of these duplicate regions within the human genome. How did this complex architecture evolve? How variable are these regions? How do they contribute to disease? Have genomic duplications helped humans, or primates, adapt? Eichler and others recently showed that the human genome changes constantly—and duplicate sequences are among the fastest evolving regions, telling an interesting evolutionary tale and contributing to human disease.
Dr. Eichler graduated with a B.Sc. Honors degree in Biology from the University of Saskatchewan, Canada in 1990. He received his Ph.D. in 1995 from the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine Houston where he worked with Dr. David L Nelson on mechanisms of triplet repeat instability. After postdoctoral fellowships at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Roswell Park Cancer Institute, he became a member of the faculty of Case Western Reserve University in 1997. In 2004 he moved to the Division of Human Biology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and then to his current position at the University of Washington. His honors include a "Distinguished Human Genome Postdoctoral Fellowship" from the Department of Energy (1995-1997), a Basil O'Connor Award from the March of Dimes (1998-2001) and participation as a member of the Human Genome Sequencing Analysis. group (2000- 2003).
Recent duplication architecture of the human genome. The organization of segmental duplications that are >90 percent sequence identical and >1 kb in length is shown as red bars overlaid on the human genome. Approximately 5–6 percent of the human genome consists of duplicated segments, the majority of which cluster into ~390 duplication hubs. The complex mosaic architecture of one of these duplication hubs in 2p11 is shown in more detail (blue arrow). The ~750 kb consists of 17 gene-rich segments that were duplicatively transposed from the euchromatin to this pericentromeric region 10–20 million years ago. Euchromatic colonization of the region abruptly ceased 10 million years ago. Credits: Julie Horvath and Jeffrey Bailey
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