Eric Lander has resigned as White House science advisor and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, according to the Washington Post.
His resignation comes after a two-month White House investigation uncovered evidence of disrespectful interactions between Lander and staff that violated workplace policies, as Politico reported yesterday. It noted that although President Joe Biden had promised to fire administration appointees who contributed to hostile workplaces, "corrective actions" were to be taken in Lander's case. The Post adds that the White House struggled Monday to explain why Lander still held his position.
Lander has now resigned, as CNN reports.
"I am devastated that I caused hurt to past and present colleagues by the way in which I have spoken to them," Lander wrote in his resignation letter to Biden, according to the Post. "It is clear that things I said, and the way I said them, crossed the line at times into being disrespectful and demeaning, to both men and women. That was never my intention."
Buzzfeed News notes that Lander has been a divisive figure, who sparred with competitors during the race to sequence the human genome and who previously came under fire for downplaying the contributions of Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier in the development of CRISPR.