New era for NHGRI

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) announced a number of major appointments Tuesday, while the institute's leaders were meeting to map out its mission in the post-sequencing era of genomics.Mark Guyer will be the new director of NHGRI's Division of Extramural Research (DER), the branch that oversees the Human Genome Project (HGP). Guyer, formerly associate director of DER, succeeds Elke Jordan, who had been with the HGP since 1988, when she became director of the NIH Office of Human Genome Research that eventually grew into NHGRI. Jordan left her dual post as DER director and NHGRI Deputy Director in July to become program director at the NIH Foundation. Guyer's previous job has been split into two associate director positions to be filled by DER veterans Bettie Graham and Jane Peterson. "It was my feeling and Francis' (Collins) feeling that by having people whose responsibilities were more bounded, that the advice they would give me and the advice I would give him would be improved," Guyer told The Scientist. The new positions also reflect Guyer's management style, he added, "one that involves a lot of discussion and advice, and I wanted two people who would function as people I could bounce ideas off." Peterson, who was director of DER's Large Scale Sequencing program, will now focus on comparative genomics and technology development. Graham's brief will include activities in which she has already had a hand at NHGRI, including grants management, training and efforts to bring minority scientists into genomics research.Eric Green was also named Scientific Director for NHGRI's Division of Intramural Research (DIR) Tuesday, replacing Jeffrey Trent, NHGRI¹s first scientific director, who founded the institute's intramural program. Green has been chief of DIR's Genome Technology Branch since 1996, and in 1997 founded the National Institutes of Health Intramural Sequencing Center (NISC) in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Trent left NHGRI in October to become president and chief scientific officer of the Translational Genomics Research Institute, a new public-private research consortium in Phoenix, Arizona. The only new face among NHGRI's appointments announced this week is William Gahl, tapped to fill the long-open position of Clinical Director for the institute's intramural research division. Gahl, a biochemical geneticist, has been with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1981, when he started as a staff fellow in the inter-institute Medical Genetics Training Program. He has been with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) since 1984, most recently as chief of its Human Genetics Branch, and section chief for human biochemical genetics in the NICHD Heritable Disorders Branch. In a press release issued Tuesday, NHGRI director Francis Collins said of Gahl, "At this moment in history, where the success of the Human Genome Project is creating considerably broader possibilities for understanding and treating genetic disorders, he is exactly the right person to lead our clinical programs."Collins was at the Airlie conference center in Warrenton, Virginia on Tuesday, along with NHGRI staff and additional interested parties, meeting to discuss those broader possibilities, which are also key to defining NHGRI's mission in the post-sequencing era of the HGP. The institute's latest 5-year plan (1998-2003) will be expiring soon. Together with the planned announcement of a complete human genome sequence in the spring of 2003, Guyer acknowledged, "It basically creates the need for finding a new focus."He declined to discuss specifics of a new mission for NHGRI. "The planning process isn't complete," said Guyer, though he did make clear that one focus will be applying genomic knowledge to disease. "The fact that the National Institutes of Health has invested as much money as it has over the years is because it has such important medical implications. That will be dictating the way we pursue genomics," he explained.Recent evidence of NHGRI's new emphasis on translational research is the $100 million international HapMap Project. The effort to map human haplotypes, where disease-causing genetic variations reside in the genome, is "aimed at speeding the discovery of genes related to common illnesses such as asthma, cancer, diabetes and heart disease," according to NHGRI's October announcement of the program.

New era for NHGRI

US genome institute announces major promotions while pondering post-sequence future.

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