Transitions

Stephen Elledge

Last month Steven Ruben left one genome-based drug-discovery company in Rockville, Maryland, for another. After ten years with Human Genome Sciences, most recently as vice-president of research, he joined Celera Genomics as vice-president of protein therapeutics.

Michel Lannoo has been appointed scientific director of the department of physical sciences and mathematics at the CNRS, the French national research agency. He succeeds Elisabeth Giacobino, who has been appointed director of research at the French ministry of youth, education and research.

David Weatherall, emeritus regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, UK, has been named a Fogarty scholar in residence of the US National Institutes of Health.

Michael Wolff Jensen last month resigned as chief financial officer of Copenhagen-based biotech company Genmab to take on the same position with Pharotech, a Lundbeck spin-off, also in Copenhagen.

Mitzi Kuroda

Frederick Rickles will join the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology as executive director in July. He is currently associate vice-president for health research, compliance and technology transfer, and professor of medicine and paediatrics at the George Washington University Medical Center in Washington.

Albert Zlotnik last month left Eos Biotechnology in South San Francisco to become senior director of molecular medicine at Neurocrine Biosciences in San Diego.

BIOLOGY

A new building at Harvard Medical School has helped to lure a trio of scientists away from the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Professor of biochemistry Stephen Elledge and his wife Mitzi Kuroda, a professor of cell biology and human genetics, are set to move to Harvard's Center for Genetics and Genomics, which is directed by Raju Kucherlapati. At the same time, Wade Harper, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Baylor, will join Harvard's pathology department.

Wade Harper

For Elledge and Kuroda, the move marks the second time that the couple have conquered the 'two-body problem' that can arise when partners both work in science. The couple's first joint move came in 1989 when they left their postdocs at Stanford University to head for Baylor. “Getting two jobs to begin with was difficult,” says Elledge. The move was easier this time because they were both recruited simultaneously, instead of being engaged in a dual job hunt. Although they have both enjoyed their time at Baylor, new facilities and the chance to be a part of the Harvard centre proved to be an irresistible prospect for the pair.

Like Kuroda and Elledge, Harper says he was happy at Baylor. As well as the new facilities, Harvard was attractive to him because of the collaborations he has already established there — especially in proteomics. The pathology department and the medical school's general environment offer “an outstanding opportunity to pursue our analysis of genes controlling cell division and other signal transduction pathways”, says Harper.

ASTRONOMY

For Christian Veillet, who takes over as executive director of the firm that runs the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) this month, the road to his new position called for some personal adaptations. First, he had to learn to live with a series of short-term appointments away from home — he has had a string of three-year appointments as a resident astronomer at the telescope since 1996. Second, he had to adapt to a culture in which his native French isn't the dominant language.

Judging by the dearth of applications from French astronomers for his earlier post as resident astronomer at the CFHT, there is still some resistance to such drastic moves in order to foster a scientific career. But Veillet thinks that this may be changing, although senior scientists need to spread the message. “Young people need to know they have to move,” he says. His own first move might have been more of a wrench had he not had an appointment in France to fall back on — not to mention 16 years' experience at the centre for study and research in geodynamics and astrometry in Grasse.

BIOINFORMATICS

George Michaels

After finishing a research programme at biotech company Monsanto in St Louis, Missouri, George Michaels last month returned to his academic roots as director of bioinformatics at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington. He was attracted by the post's industrial approach to academic problems. “There was an opportunity to do new work in bioinformatics at a scale that hadn't been done at academic institutions before,” he says. The lab will play a large role in characterizing the genetic sequences of many microbial organisms.

Michaels' 30-year career includes stints at the US National Institutes of Health and George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he founded one of the nation's first doctoral programmes in bioinformatics. He now wants to use his experiences at Monsanto of leading multidisciplinary teams. He also intends to take a cue from industry in making databases and software more generally applicable — for instance, by creating a tool for microarray analysis that also works for proteomics or metabolism analysis.

PHARMACEUTICALS

Fred Hassan

Fred Hassan, who last month became chairman and chief executive of New Jersey-based drug firm Schering-Plough, knew early on that he wanted to combine science and business. After he finished his degree in chemical engineering at Imperial College, London, he went back to his native Pakistan to work in the bulk-chemical industry. But while there, he realized that he needed more management training, so he went to Harvard Business School to get an MBA.

“When I went to the business school, I realized that the real long-term value would be in innovation,” he says. That led him into the drug industry. He spent 17 years with Sandoz (now Novartis), eventually heading its US operation, two years with American Home Products (now Wyeth) and six years with Pharmacia & Upjohn (now Pharmacia). Perhaps his biggest realization was that he should address the present and let the future sort itself out. “I'm the kind of person who focuses very hard on the immediate job,” Hassan says.

His immediate task at Schering-Plough means several challenges, including dealing with some of the company's biggest sellers becoming available as generic drugs. The answer is, of course, innovation, he says.