Statement of the Whitehead Institute Board of Directors

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.  — Dr. Susan Lindquist announced today that her service as President of the Whitehead Institute will end on or about November 1, 2004. Her announcement has been accepted with extreme regret by the Board of Directors.

The Board and her faculty colleagues fully understand and support Dr. Lindquist’s desire to return full attention to her laboratory and research. We are proud to have this remarkable scientist in the Whitehead community, a community that has been greatly strengthened by her leadership.

The Board recognizes that Dr. Lindquist has been an extraordinarily effective president during a period of transition unprecedented in the Institute’s history. In the past three years, she successfully implemented the transition of the Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research to the newly established Broad Institute while preserving opportunities for joint scientific programs between Whitehead and the Broad. She also negotiated important improvements in the Whitehead/MIT affiliation.

The Board knew from the outset that its expectations would demand from Dr. Lindquist an enormous expenditure of time and energy on behalf of the Institute. Therefore it particularly admires her scientific achievements during the same time period. Dr. Lindquist’s research program has flourished and contributed highly original new insights into our understanding of biological systems.