Leroy Hood has stepped down as director of the Institute for Systems Biology. He is replaced by the institute’s co-founder and associated director Alan Aderem. Hood, a co-founder himself, will remain the ISB’s president. Aderem will define the scientific direction of the institute and oversee the integration of its various disciplines, besides leading a research group. He left the University of Washington in 2000 to co-found the ISB. Before 1996, he headed a laboratory at Rockefeller University. “Alan’s experience and determination will be invaluable internally as I focus on raising our profile, building our resources and expanding our partnership base,” Hood said in a statement. Since it was founded in 2000, the non-profit institute has grown to more than 170 staff members and has raised more than $90 million in funding.
Inder Verma has joined the scientific advisory board of NuGEN Technologies, based in San Carlos, Calif. Verma is a professor of molecular biology at the Salk Institute and an adjunct professor at the University of California, San Diego.