MIT's Chris Kaiser, who was slated to take the top spot at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, will not be doing so, reports the Nature News Blog. According to Nature, National Institutes of Health Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak sent an email to Judith Greenberg, the acting NIGMS director, saying: "Chris Kaiser sent me a note today indicating that, with regret, for personal reasons he has decided to withdraw his candidacy for director of NIGMS."
Kaiser was to succeed Jeremy Berg, who left the NIGMS director post last June; Greenberg has been acting director since Berg left. Nature adds that it has been "a time of transition for the institute," as it has had to take in programs from the now-defunct National Center for Research Resources.