Eric Jakobsson, James Cassatt, Andrew Whiteley

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences has appointed Eric Jakobsson as the first director of the NIGMS Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. He will take the reins from James Cassatt, director of the NIGMS Division of Cell Biology and Biophysics, who has served as CBCB’s acting director since the center was established in 2001. Prior to joining NIGMS, Jakobsson was a professor in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and served as director of the Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Jakobsson will also head the NIH-wide Biomedical Information Science and Technology Initiative.

Andrew Whiteley, most recently CEO of InforMax prior to the company’s acquisition by Invitrogen in December, has joined cellular assay technology firm Vitra Bioscience as president, CEO, and member of the board of directors.