We are often asked, "Why are you doing your stickleback research in the human biology division at a cancer research center?" Our work on sticklebacks has important implications for the study of human disease. Many of the phenotypes that we study in sticklebacks are "complex traits", which means that they result from a combination of many genetic factors as well as environmental factors. Similarly, most human diseases (like cancer) are complex traits, which means that getting a single mutant gene from one of your parents is far from the only factor in most common human diseases.

By using sticklebacks as a model organism in the laboratory, we can begin to understand the genetic and environmental components of these complex traits, and use what we learn in sticklebacks to determine how to study complex traits in humans. Furthermore, stickleback populations have diverged within the last 10,000 years, which represents around 10,000 stickleback generations; this is similar to the number of generations in which human populations have spread across the world. Therefore, the genetic architecture underlying both stickleback and human evolution may be similar.

Finally, our own work benefits greatly from our colleagues here at the Hutch, who are conducting innovative research in many areas and provide an interactive and dynamic environment in which to conduct research.