UTHSC forms new Department of Genetics, Genomics and Informatics

University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) is forming the new Department of Genetics, Genomics and Informatics (GGI) on its Memphis campus, and renowned experimental neurogeneticist Dr. Robert W. Williams, the UT-ORNL Governor's Chair in Computational Genomics, will serve as the department's founding chair.
 
"We have had vibrant programs in genetics, genomics and bioinformatics for over 15 years, but efforts have been spread widely," says Williams, who has been a faculty member in the UTHSC Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology for 25 years. "By forming a department devoted to these core areas of biomedical research, we expect to solidify and catalyze even more research and teaching in these areas."
 
One of the first research projects for the Department of GGI will be pushing to get genetics and genomics (DNA sequencing) into clinics and hospitals across the state of Tennessee in order to help health care professions at all levels make the right decisions.
 
"St. Jude and Vanderbilt are already doing this big time. We need to get their technologies into all hospital systems over the next decade," says Williams. "We also must make sure that experimental work is tightly connected to human genetics and human diseases at some level. Researchers at UTHSC have been at the forefront of developing new types of resources that can be used to study diseases, and to develop more effective treatments and drugs. We have worked with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and groups around the world to develop greatly improved research tools that are now setting the stage of improved health care."
 
The new GGI department will start out consisting of five core faculty members with primary appointments. Four of the five will be repositioned from other UTHSC departments, and one new hire will be made soon. Williams expects to make one or two additional hires later in the year if all goes well.
 
Future growth will happen through joint faculty appointments from many other departments, colleges, campuses and institutions--including St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the University of Memphis.
 
"If the economy and support for higher education improve over the next several years, then we may be able to grow to 10 or more faculty in three to four years," Williams says.
 
By Michael Waddell