Rate My Professor Harmit Malik

Harmit Malik is a Professor and Associate Director of the Basic Sciences Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where he established his lab in 2003. He serves as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator since 2013, an affiliate professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington, and a member of the Pathogen-Associated Malignancies Integrated Research Center. In the field of Biology, Malik specializes in evolutionary genetics, studying genetic conflict where competing genetic entities drive rapid evolutionary change and recurrent genetic innovation. His research explores molecular arms races at centromeres, which influence chromosomal stability and speciation; host-virus interactions, including ancient retroviruses via paleovirology; and mobile genetic elements in Drosophila, primates, and yeast. This work reveals mechanisms behind species divergence, antiviral defenses, and disease vulnerabilities like HIV and cancer, characterizing rapidly evolving protein interfaces and gene variants affecting infection susceptibility.

Malik received a BTech in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in 1993 and a PhD in Biology from the University of Rochester in 1999, focusing on retrotransposon origins under Tom Eickbush. He conducted postdoctoral research in Steve Henikoff's laboratory at Fred Hutch, funded by a Helen Hay Whitney Foundation fellowship. Key publications include "The centromere paradox: stable inheritance with rapidly evolving DNA" (Science, 2001), "Phylogenomics of the nucleosome" (Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, 2003), "Positive selection of primate TRIM5α identifies a critical species-specific retroviral restriction domain" (PNAS, 2005), and "A SARS-CoV-2 protein interaction map reveals targets for drug repurposing" (Nature, 2020). His contributions have earned election to the National Academy of Sciences (2019), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2022), Edward Novitski Prize from the Genetics Society of America (2022), Vilcek Prize (2010), Burroughs Wellcome Award (2006), and other distinctions, underscoring his profound influence on understanding genome evolution and genetic conflicts.