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People in the News: Gregory Lucier, Mark Dronsfield, Christoph Franz, Dietrich Stephan

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Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute has elected Gregory Lucier to chairman of the board. He will take over from M. Wainwright Fishburn Jr., who will remain a member of the board.

Lucier is CEO and chairman of Life Technologies. He also served on Sanford-Burnham's Board of Trustees from 2005 until 2011. He holds a BS in engineering from Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.


Personalis has appointed Mark Dronsfield as director of European sales as part of the firm's recent formation of a UK subsidiary, Personalis UK Limited.

Dronsfield joins Personalis from RainDance Technologies, where he was most recently head of commercial operations in Europe. He has also held European commercial operations positions at Illumina, Affymetrix, and Life Technologies.


Roche has nominated Christoph Franz to chairman of the board of directors. He would succeed Franz Humer, who previously announced that he would not stand for re-election. Franz will not renew his contract as CEO of Lufthansa Group, which expires on May 31, 2014.


Dietrich Stephan has been named chair of the department of human genetics at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and will also serve as the associate director of the Institute for Personalized Medicine, a collaborative initiative between the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences and UPMC.

Stephan was most recently founder, president, and CEO of Silicon Valley Biosystems. He holds a PHD in human genetics from the University of Pittsburgh.

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.