LONDON — Speculation over who would get one of the most senior jobs in British science finally ended Thursday when Mark Walport was named the new director of the Wellcome Trust, effective June 1.
Walport, currently professor of medicine and head of the division of medicine at Imperial College, London, succeeds Mike Dexter, who retires at the end of March after five years at the post.
Walport was a governor of the Trust from October 2000 until earlier this month, when he relinquished that post.
Trust chairman Sir Dominic Cadbury said in a press statement: "His knowledge of Trust business, combined with a proven track-record in science and management, makes him the ideal candidate to take on the challenges which face such a large and diverse organisation."
Walport, born in 1953, trained at Cambridge and at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School in the 1970s, earning an MB Chir and PhD ...
