NEW YORK, Feb. 15-Joint Genome Institute director Trevor Hawkins will leave his government job for a position as senior vice president of genomics at Amersham Biosciences, the company said today.
Hawkins will guide the company's genomics business, reporting to Amersham Biosciences CEO Andrew Carr. He will initially work at the company's R&D center in Sunnyvale, Calif..
Hawkins replaces Mark Sutherland, who will take on a new role at Amersham working with key customers, according to a company spokesperson.
JGI has not yet chosen a replacement, but Hawkins has agreed to transition gradually out of his duties at the institute, said Lawrence Berkeley acting director of public affairs Reid Edwards. "It's not like he's walking out the door to Sunnyvale tomorrow," Edwards said.
Edwards added that JGI hoped to identify a replacement director by the summer, "but that's not hard and fast."
Hawkins was previously director of the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute, one of the leaders of the Human Genome Project. Hawkins joined JGI in 1999 as deputy director and became director of the institute in November 2000.
Prior to that, Hawkins was vice president for genomics at CuraGen.