William Brody, outgoing president of The Johns Hopkins University, will take over in March as head of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., officials announced Monday.
The brainchild of Jonas Salk, developer of the polio vaccine, the institute opened in 1963 to study the fundamentals of life. The independent nonprofit focuses its work on neurosciences, plant biology, and molecular biology and genetics, and its researchers try to find treatments for a range of diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s and AIDS.
As president, Brody, 64, will oversee the institute’s 850 scientists, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and its 57 faculty investigators. Researchers at the institute have served on National Academy of Sciences panels, and five trained there have won Nobel Prizes.
“I’m looking forward to getting back to my passion” of scientific discovery, Brody said at a news conference Monday at Salk.
He called the institute “one of the true jewels in the crown of biomedical science” and said he would spend considerable time in Washington, D.C. lobbying for federal research funds.
“We are in troubled economic times, and I think in part we are in troubled economic times because our country has failed to remember that it’s basic innovation that has made our country great,” he said at the news conference, which was broadcast by phone to the media.
“If we don’t innovate, we won’t grow our economy, and the way we innovate is discover, and that’s what we do at places like Johns Hopkins and the Salk Institute.”
Roger Guillemin, a Nobel Laureate and Salk’s interim president for the past year, said Brody was at the top of a list of potential successors to Richard Murphy, who retired as president of the institute in July 2007. Brody announced in March that he planned to leave Hopkins by the end of the year, and within a day, Guillemin said, Salk contacted him.
“The man is outstanding,” Guillemin said. “He has a medical degree, an engineering degree. He has done superbly with fundraising.”
Brody, a Stockton, Calif., native, has led Hopkins for 12 years, the fifth-longest tenure in school history. He led an expansion of facilities at several of the school’s campuses, which are in Baltimore City, Washington, D.C., Montgomery County, China and Italy. The school has consistently outpaced capital fundraising goals under his leadership.
Brody said he would determine his initial plans for Salk once he takes over March 1. He is to step down from Hopkins Dec. 31.
“We will see how we achieve greatness.”
