Eric Lander: Nominee
Biden has elevated the presidential science adviser, who councils the president on a broad range of scientific and technological topics, to be a member of the Cabinet. The adviser leads the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Eric Lander
MIT and Harvard University Professor
Lander, a mathematician and geneticist, co-chaired the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology under Obama and helped map the human genome. His background in life sciences is unusual for heads of OSTP, who have typically been physicists, able to advise the president on issues related to nuclear weapons and related technologies. His nomination suggests the importance of biology expertise in the midst of covid-19 pandemic.
Source: Washington Post Reported by Kate Rabinowitz and Sarah Kaplan.
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Eric S. Lander | Broad Institute
2021-01-21 Eric Lander Is Not the Ideal Choice for Presidential Science Adviser Despite a long list of supremely qualified people who could inspire a whole new generation of scientists, the glass ceiling in American science remains intact.
While we can celebrate the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to science, we must recognize that Lander has a reputation among some scientists for being controversial, and colleagues have criticized him for his “ego without end.” We cannot forget that in 2016, Lander wrote a widely criticized history of the revolutionary technology CRISPR, dubbed the “Heroes of CRISPR,” that erased the contributions of two women colleagues. This conspicuous exclusion is emblematic of the forces in science that hold back women and scientists of color from attaining the level of prominence he enjoys.
These are hardly contributions that could be omitted by mistake. In 2020, those scientists, Emmanuelle Charpentier of the Max Planck Unit for the Science of Pathogens and Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work, solidifying their place in history.
2021-01-15 Biden will elevate White House science office to Cabinet-level – WP
2020-12-15 Biden elevates White House science post to Cabinet level – CNN
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