James Broach has been named associate director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and will oversee its operations as the University conducts a national search for a director to succeed Shirley M. Tilghman. Tilghman, who will become Princeton's 19th president in June, will remain director until the search is concluded.
The search committee will be chaired by Eric F. Wieschaus, a professor of molecular biology and a 1995 Nobel laureate.
"I am extremely grateful that Professor Broach has agreed to take on the important responsibilities of leading the new Institute during this formative period," Tilghman said. "His leadership will ensure that the Institute continues on its path to becoming a vital research center at the forefront of the life sciences."
The Lewis-Sigler Institute was launched in 1998 as a multi-disciplinary center supporting pioneering research on the dynamic properties of biological systems using integrated computational and experimental approaches. Construction of the new building has begun and should be completed next year, bringing together scientists from different disciplines to explore the ways in which discrete bits of genomic information are integrated to generate the functions of living organisms.
Broach, a professor of molecular biology, received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Yale University and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. He joined the Princeton faculty in 1984 as associate professor and was named a professor two years later. Broach also has taught at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and has been a fellow and staff scientist at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Berkeley.
Wieschaus, the Squibb Professor in Molecular Biology, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his research on genetic control of embryonic development. In addition to his role since 1981 as a Princeton faculty member, he is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and adjunct professor of biochemistry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
Tilghman thanked Wieschaus for chairing the search committee. "With Professor Wieschaus leading the search, we can be confident that the Institute will find an excellent director to help it achieve the ambitious goals Princeton has set for it," she said.
Contact: Marilyn Marks (609) 258-3601
