David Page selected as interim director of Whitehead
Institute for Biomedical Research
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Dec. 10, 2004) — The Whitehead
Institute Board of Directors has announced that David
Page will be the interim director of the Institute,
effective this month, December 2004.
“David Page is both a great scientist and a
wonderful person,” says Alex d’Arbeloff,
Chair for Whitehead’s Board of Directors. “We
affirm this appointment with the utmost enthusiasm
and look
forward to working with him.”
Page, a Professor
of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute, graduated from Harvard Medical School
and the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology
Program in 1984. That same year he came to Whitehead
as one of the Institute’s first Fellows.
Throughout his career, Page has focused on the genetic
basis of differences between human males and females,
and particularly on the roles of the X and Y chromosomes.
During the past two decades, Page and his laboratory
have revolutionized scientific understanding of the
Y chromosome previously thought to be the wasteland
of the human genome. For decades, the Y chromosome
was thought to be gradually deteriorating due to its
inability to fix genetic damage by swapping genetic
material with a mate. In the June 2003 issue of Nature,
Page and his colleagues (at Whitehead and at Washington
University, St. Louis) described a system of self-repair
that is unique to the Y chromosome. Page’s lab
is now focusing on the question of germ cell sex determination
in mammals, and on the development of the embryonic
ovary.
“Since the doors of this Institute opened two
decades ago, the Whitehead has defined excellence in
biology,” says
Page. “My goal as Interim Director is to build
upon the incredible legacy of three superlative directors:
David Baltimore, Gerry Fink, and Sue Lindquist. I’m
honored by the Whitehead Institute’s confidence
in me.”
Page is the recipient of numerous honors
that include the MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship
(1986), the
Amory Prize from the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences (1997), and the Curt Stern Award from the
American
Society of Human Genetics (2003).
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