Dr. Geoffrey Hicks

Deciphering the Double Helix
Winnipeg Researcher Building a Rosetta Stone for the Human Genome

The entire human genome was mapped by the end of 2003. Technology and resources promoted by this project have already impacted biomedical research and promise to change the way medicine is practiced. For example, detailed genome maps have aided researchers seeking genes associated with dozens of genetic conditions.

Geoffrey Hicks, PhD of the Mammalian Functional Genomics Centre (MFGC) is linking genes to their specific functions to help unravel their role in day-to-day activities and in disease.

Dr. Hicks is a University of Manitoba professor who is working on analyzing the genetic factors which play a role in leukemia. His technique of disrupting the genes in mouse embryonic stem cells and observing the results was key in understanding how different suspected genes affected the progression of the disease.

Having demonstrated the strengths of using this targeted animal model for gene-based disease research, Dr. Hicks and the MFGC are now involved in generating a mouse cell library that will contain mutations in every gene in the mouse genome. This project has been specifically identified as the next most important step following the Human Genome Project. It will advance the understanding of how the sequence of letters (our DNA) translates into gene function, providing a living blueprint of instruction and design. This library will be freely available to all biomedical researchers, and will significantly impact biomedical disease-focus research programs and biotech companies in Canada.

Dr Hicks received his PhD in Physiology at the University of Manitoba and was a National Cancer Institute of Canada postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Vanderbilt School of Medicine. He is a Canada Research Chair in Functional Genomics and is the Director of the Mammalian Functional Genomics Centre, a centre in the Manitoba Institute of Cell Biology which is a joint institute between CancerCare Manitoba and the University of Manitoba and the Genetics Modeling Centre in the University of Manitoba. He is currently co-leading the North American Conditional Mouse Mutagenesis Project (NorCOMM), the Canadian component of The International Knockout Mouse Project, with Janet Rossant Chief of Research, at University of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. NorCOMM is supported by Genome Prairie with funding of $13.5 million from Genome Canada and other partners.

For further information, please contact Dr. Geoffrey Hicks using the Email contact form or by phone at 204 787-2133