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Joe Biden names top geneticist as adviser 2/11/21, 9:47 AM

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NEWS · 16 JANUARY 2021 names top geneticist Eric Lander as science adviser

US president-elect also elevates the position to the cabinet for the first time.

Nidhi Subbaraman & Alexandra Witze

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00118-8 Page 1 of 9 Joe Biden names top geneticist Eric Lander as science adviser 2/11/21, 9:47 AM

If confirmed, Eric Lander will be the first biologist to run the US Office of Science and Technology Policy.

US president-elect Joe Biden has chosen the decorated geneticist Eric Lander as his presidential science adviser and the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). If Lander’s appointment is confirmed by the US Senate, he will serve as a member of Biden’s cabinet — a first for this position.

Many scientists have long called for the OSTP director to be raised to a cabinet-level position. “Having science elevated to its rightful place in the administration seems to me a very positive step,” says Harold Varmus, a cancer researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in City and a

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00118-8 Page 2 of 9 Joe Biden names top geneticist Eric Lander as science adviser 2/11/21, 9:47 AM former head of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). “I think it marks a very important moment in the history of science in the government.”

“It signifies the importance of who will be in the room when RELATED decisions are being made,” says Roger Pielke Jr, who studies science policy at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Lander was a key figure in the — the race to sequence the human genome, which ended in 2003 — Biden’s pick to head US and is the president and founding director of the Broad environment agency heartens scientists Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He will be the first biologist to run the OSTP.

Between 2009 and 2017, he co-chaired the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), an elite panel that advises the US president. Among the PCAST reports issued during Lander’s tenure were some dealing with energy, climate change and vaccine response in the face of pandemic influenza.

"This is a marvellous appointment, it’s great to see a life RELATED scientist running the OSTP,” says Varmus, who co-chaired PCAST with Lander.

When Biden named Lander as a member of his team on 15 January, he also announced the appointment of a number of other respected scientists to key positions in his Excitement as outspoken HIV researcher named to lead key US administration. “Science will always be at the forefront of my health agency administration — and these world-renowned scientists will ensure everything we do is grounded in science, facts, and the truth,” Biden said in a statement.

Nobel laureate Frances Arnold, a bioengineer at the California Institute of Technology in

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00118-8 Page 3 of 9 Joe Biden names top geneticist Eric Lander as science adviser 2/11/21, 9:47 AM

Pasadena, and Maria Zuber, a geophysicist at MIT, will co-chair PCAST under Biden. , nominated to be deputy director for science and society at the OSTP, is a social scientist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, who studies genetics, race and other societal issues.

“These are excellent appointments, highly qualified and RELATED experienced, and well grounded in science,” Rita Colwell, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland at College Park and a former director of the US National Science Foundation, wrote to Nature in an e-mail.

Biden’s pick to head US Biden also announced that geneticist Francis Collins would environment agency heartens scientists stay on as head of the NIH. Collins was appointed to lead the biomedical-research agency in 2009 by then-president .

Biden has already established a separate, high-level team to lead the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a team to drive forward his climate agenda. With COVID-19 and climate tasked to other groups, it remains to be seen which science issues Lander and his office will be responsible for, says Pielke. “OSTP always has a challenge in figuring out what policy lanes it plays in,” he says.

The OSTP typically coordinates science policy and priorities across US federal agencies, including organizing how much money the president will ask Congress to allocate for various research areas across US science agencies.

Biden has at least given a hint of what he’d like Lander to work on, however. In a letter to Lander, Biden outlined five key questions he wanted the OSTP to tackle, including how to draw lessons from the pandemic that could inform public-health policy more broadly, and how science and technology breakthroughs could be used to help to address climate change.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00118-8 Page 4 of 9 Joe Biden names top geneticist Eric Lander as science adviser 2/11/21, 9:47 AM

RELATED Originally trained as a mathematician, Lander is a powerful figure in US science circles and one of the most highly cited researchers in the world. As one of the leaders of the epic race to sequence the human genome, he oversaw the huge centre of automated machines that performed much of the sequencing. In 2016, he was criticized for writing a history of the gene- editing technique CRISPR that emphasized the role of his The wait is over: Trump taps Broad colleague Feng Zhang and downplayed the role of meteorologist as White House at the University of California, Berkeley, and science adviser at the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens in Berlin. The was embroiled in a CRISPR patent battle with Berkeley at the time. Charpentier and Doudna went on to win the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their pioneering work on CRISPR.

Biden is scheduled to be inaugurated as president on 20 January. Lander is only the fourth person since the OSTP was created, in 1976, to be tapped for the job of leader prior to Inauguration Day, says Pielke. The outgoing OSTP director, meteorologist , wasn’t appointed by President until more than a year and a half into his presidency.

To read more about Biden's picks for science agency heads and advisers, see Nature’s updated guide.

PRESIDENTIAL SCIENCE ADVISER

The US Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) assists the White House on science and technology issues and coordinates science initiatives across US government agencies. Its leader serves as science adviser to the president. Biden elevated this position, for the first time, to the cabinet.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00118-8 Page 5 of 9 Joe Biden names top geneticist Eric Lander as science adviser 2/11/21, 9:47 AM

Credits: left, Newscom/Alamy; right, AP/Shutterstock

OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY

People: Incoming: Eric Lander Outgoing: Kelvin Droegemeier

Lander, a geneticist, was co- Droegemeier, a meteorologist, spent much chair of the President’s Council of his career as a professor at the University of Advisors on Science and of Oklahoma in Norman, eventually Technology, an elite panel of becoming vice president of research there. scientific advisers, under He served two terms on the US National former president Barack Science Board, a group that advises Qualifications Obama. He most recently led Congress and the president, and sets the Broad Institute of MIT and policies for the National Science Harvard, a top US biomedical- Foundation, a major US funding agency. In research organization, as March 2017, he was appointed to the president and founding cabinet of Oklahoma’s governor as director. secretary of science and technology.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00118-8 Page 6 of 9 Joe Biden names top geneticist Eric Lander as science adviser 2/11/21, 9:47 AM

A key player in the Human Genome Project, Lander is one Droegemeier didn’t start the top job at the of the most highly cited OSTP until over two years after US researchers in the world. He is President Donald Trump took office. Prior to also an influential and his start, the office shrank from the 130 sometimes controversial figure Known for staff employed by former president Obama in US science. For instance, he to just about 50. Research security has has been criticized for writing a been a priority for the OSTP, alongside history of the gene-editing programmes that boost artificial intelligence technique CRISPR that and quantum information science. downplayed the role of two female pioneers in the field.

Announced 15 January 2021; Tenure February 2019–January 2021. awaiting Senate confirmation.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00118-8

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