Dr. Jeremy M. Berg, director of the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), has announced that he will step down from his post to become associate senior vice chancellor for science strategy and planning in the health sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. He will also be a faculty member in the department of computational and systems biology at the university's School of Medicine. Berg anticipates leaving NIGMS at the end of June 2011, at which point an acting director will be named if the search for a new director is still under way.
As NIGMS director, Berg oversees a $2 billion budget that primarily funds basic research in cell biology, biophysics, genetics, developmental biology, pharmacology, physiology, biological chemistry, bioinformatics and computational biology. The institute supports more than 4,500 research grants, which make up about 10 percent of all grants funded by NIH. NIGMS also funds a substantial amount of research training and programmes designed to increase the diversity of the biomedical and behavioural research workforce.
During Berg's tenure, NIGMS issued its first formal strategic plan and embarked on a strategic plan for research training that is due to be completed in early 2011. He also launched assessments of large-scale and other programmes, increased support for new investigators and for highly innovative research, and spearheaded dialogue with the scientific community through the NIGMS Feedback Loop blog and other interactive outreach efforts.
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