The between team

Executives at the Department of Health and Human Services have named a few acting agency heads as the US government prepares to transition into a new administration under President-Elect Barack Obama. There are no real surprises, with deputies or second-in-commands taking over next week and serving at top spots until successors are named by incoming HHS head linkurl:Tom Daschle;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55206/ or directly by Obama. Cancer biologist linkurl:Frank Torti,;http://w

Written byBob Grant
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Executives at the Department of Health and Human Services have named a few acting agency heads as the US government prepares to transition into a new administration under President-Elect Barack Obama. There are no real surprises, with deputies or second-in-commands taking over next week and serving at top spots until successors are named by incoming HHS head linkurl:Tom Daschle;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55206/ or directly by Obama. Cancer biologist linkurl:Frank Torti,;http://www1.wfubmc.edu/canbio/Faculty/Torti+F.htm who spoke with __The Scientist__ last year when he was named the Food and Drug Administration's first ever Chief Scientist, will serve as FDA head starting on Inauguration Day, January 20th. You can hear a snippet of the conversation I had with Torti linkurl:here.;http://images.the-scientist.com/supplementary/audio/torti_cut.wav Other temporary assignments include linkurl:Raynard Kington;http://www.nih.gov/about/director/index.htm staying on as acting director of the National Institutes of Health, and Centers for Disease Control & Prevention chief operating officer linkurl:William Gimson;http://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/leaders/gimson.htm taking over when current director linkurl:Julie Gerberding;http://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/director.htm leaves the post. The Washington, D.C. rumor mill has suggested that genomicist linkurl:Francis Collins;http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/333.page may be next in line to serve as NIH director, and that Clinton-era FDA commissioner linkurl:Jane Henney;http://www.fda.gov/oc/commissioners/henney.html could return to her old post. Other names bandied about as potential FDA commissioners include another former comish, linkurl:David Kessler,;http://www.fda.gov/oc/commissioners/kessler.html and Cleveland Clinic cardiologist linkurl:Steven Nissen.;http://my.clevelandclinic.org/staff_directory/2/staff_1185.aspx
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:New NIH head talks budget, priorities;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55179/
[10th November 2008]*linkurl:FDA's 1st Chief Scientist speaks;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54555/
[16th April 2008]*linkurl:Steve Nissen goes 0 for 2;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/53284/
[14th June 2007]*linkurl:Accelerating new drug development;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/19429/
[30th January 2001]
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Meet the Author

  • From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.

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