March 29, 2007
Jarvik to head Division of Medical Genetics
Gail P. Jarvik, UW professor of medicine, has been appointed the new head of the Department of Medicine’s Division of Medical Genetics and the Arno G. Motulsky Endowed Professorship of Medicine, effective immediately. She succeeds George Stamatoyannopoulos, who stepped down as division head in 2005.
Jarvik is an adjunct professor of genome sciences and of epidemiology, a member of the Markey Molecular Medicine Center, and an affiliate member of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. She is a distinguished investigator of the genetics of complex disease, as well as an educator and national and international leader in the profession.
She holds a medical degree from the University of Iowa and a doctorate in human genetics from the University of Michigan. She came to UW in 1991 as a fellow in medical genetics and then joined the faculty. She is an attending physician in the UWMC Medical Genetics Clinic, where her clinical specialty is adult medical and cancer genetics.
Jarvik chairs the Genomics, Computational Biology, and Technologies Study Section of the National Institutes of Health, and has served on numerous other bodies dealing with ethical, legal, and social implications of medical genetics and other issues. Recently she was named a Lifetime National Associate of the National Academies in recognition of extraordinary service and was designated a Local Legend from Washington by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., in association with the American Medical Women’s Association and the National Library of Medicine.
The Motulsky endowed professorship was established in 2004 in honor of Arno Motulsky, an active professor emeritus of medicine and of genome sciences and founder of the division. Motulsky is an internationally recognized pioneer in human and medical genetics, and led the UW Division of Medical Genetics for more than 30 years.
