People: Biologist Fink Follows David Baltimore As Director Of MIT's Whitehead Institute

Gerald R. Fink, American Cancer Society Professor of Genetics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, has been named the new director of the institute. Fink will assume the post July 1, succeeding David Baltimore, who has accepted the presidency of Rockefeller University.

Fink was nominated by an eight-member search committee composed of MIT and Whitehead Institute faculty members, with the final selection being made by Whitehead's board of directors. The Whitehead Institute is a nonprofit, independent basic research and teaching institution currently focusing research efforts on developmental biology.

Fink, 49, and also a professor in MIT's Department of Biology, sees recruiting young faculty and developing "first-rate scientists" among his priorities as new director. "I have an opportunity to develop some very good scientists," says Fink. "I feel like someone who has been given a gem," he says, referring to Whitehead's faculty and scientists. "The idea...