Amar Jit Singh Klar (April 1, 1947 – March 5, 2017) was an Indian-American yeast geneticist and epigenetics researcher.
[1][2] He received media attention for his research on the genetics of human traits, including handedness and the direction of hair whorls.
[2] In 1978, after getting a phone call from James Watson, Klar began doing yeast research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL).
[2] In 1988, he left CSHL to join the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Gene Regulation and Chromosome Biology Laboratory, which was affiliated with the ABL Basic Research Program in Frederick, Maryland.
The novel "The Marriage Plot" written by Pulitzer prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides was loosely based on Klar's sentinel yeast genetics research while at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.