Eric Lander Joe Biden, the new president of the USA, nominated geneticist Eric Lander as chief science advisor and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policies (OSTP), a committee that advises the president on scientific matters. Lander (photograph) is an influential figure in the American scientific community. A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he played a major role in the human genome sequencing project, completed in 2003. He co-chaired the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) between 2009 and 2017. Biden made the announcement on January 15, before actually moving into the White House—in stark contrast to former President Donald Trump, who took 19 months to announce his chief science advisor and OSTP director. Biden named chemical engineer Frances Arnold, from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and MIT geophysicist Maria Zuber to co-chair the PCAST. Social scientist Alondra Nelson of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton will be deputy director of science and society at OSTP, a newly created position. Geneticist Francis Collins will remain as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
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