NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) - Nobel Prize-winning immunologist Jean Dausset, who also was involved in the mapping of the human genome, has died at the age of 92. A Frenchman, Dausset became director the Research Unit on Immunogenetics of Human Transplantation of the National Institute of Health and Medical Research in 1968.
Mettler-Toledo International has named Martin Madaus to serve on its board of directors. Madaus is CEO, chairman, and president of Millipore, and he formerly was chairman of Roche Diagnostics.
Heiner Dreismann, former CEO of Roche Molecular Diagnostics, has joined the board of directors at Shrink Nanotechnologies, and he will chair the company's business advisory board. Before he served as CEO at Roche, Dreismann was a senior executive in the company's business unit for PCR and microbiology.
Chad Mirkin, co-founder of Nanoshpere and director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University, has won the Lemelson-MIT Prize from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mirkin has developed ultra-high sensitivity and selectivity assays based on nanostructures for use in medical diagnostics. The Lemelson-MIT Program recognizes inventors, encourages sustainable solutions to real-world problems, and inspires young people to creative and inventive pursuits.
The Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics has announced that Amos Bairoch, who created the Swiss-Prot protein database, will direct a new project to develop a data resource on human proteins. Bairoch will remain senior scientific advisor to the Swiss-Prot group, which will now be directed by Ioannis Xenarios. Xenarios will continue to manage a bioinformatics initiative that provides resources to connect fundamental and applied research, Vital-IT.
Lee Hartwell will step down as president and director of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in June 2010. Hartwell won the 2001 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine and has been president and director of the Hutch since 1997.
Susan Gardiner, a New Zealand geneticist, has won an international award from the American Society for Horticultural Science for her work in fruit crop gene mapping for the Plant and Food state science company. Gardiner is co-editor of the books "Genetics and Genomics of Rosaceae" and "Association Mapping in Plants".
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