Susan K. Dutcher, Ph.D., professor of genetics and of cell biology and physiology, has been named interim head of the James S. McDonnell Department of Genetics.
Dutcher succeeds Mark Johnston, Ph.D., professor of genetics, who stepped down after four years as interim chair. Larry J. Shapiro, M.D., executive vice chancellor and dean of the School of Medicine, made the announcement.
“Susan Dutcher is a highly respected geneticist, and we are delighted to tap her skills in assuming this role,” Shapiro said. “I’d also like to recognize Mark Johnston, who did an outstanding job as interim chair, and welcome him back to full-time bench science.”
Dutcher’s goals as interim head include facilitating opportunities for scientific collaborations within the department and with other departments at the University.
“Genetics is increasingly becoming a universal tool for biomedical research, so I think it’s important that we as geneticists work to make the new approaches we’re developing available to the whole university,” she said.
Washington University’s BioMed 21 initiative, dedicated to transforming biomedical research from bench to bedside, has genetic research as one of its central cores.
Dutcher’s laboratory uses the green alga Chlamydomonas to learn how information in genes is used to construct cilia, hairlike structures on the surface of the alga’s cells. Three years ago, Dutcher conducted a pioneering experiment that used a computerized comparison of three genomes to single out genes likely to contribute to the creation of cilia in Chlamydomonas. Her lab’s research still includes studies of interesting genes highlighted by the analysis.
Dutcher earned a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Washington in 1980.
Prior to coming to WUSTL in 1999, she was a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of Colorado.
She won the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Award to Women Scientists and Engineers and was a Searle Scholar.
Dutcher is a member of the board of directors of the Genetics Society of America.