Dr. Marco Marra

Marco Antonio Marra is a distinguished scientist and director of Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre at the BC Cancer Research Centre and professor of medical genetics at the University of British Columbia. He also serves as UBC Canada Research Chair in Genome Science for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and is an inductee in the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Canadian-born and educated, Marco Marra received a B.Sc. in molecular and cell biology and a PhD in genetics from Simon Fraser University.

During his first two years with British Columbia’s Genome Sequence Center (renamed Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre), Marra served as head of the mapping and sequencing teams, associate director and Scientific Co-Director. He also held the position of senior scientist at BC Cancer Research and adjunct professor for the Department of Medical Genetics. Marra subsequently became professor and head of the Department of Medical Genetics in the Faculty of Medicine at UBC.

From 2011 to 2018, Marra founded and co-directed the Genome Science and Technology Graduate Program at UBC. He also served as adjunct professor at the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Simon Fraser University from 2001 to 2015. Marra took over as director of Canada’s Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre (GSC) when Dr. Smith died of cancer in 2000.