BIOTECH

David Konys

After less than a year in retirement, David Konys has been tempted back into employment. He joined Ingenium Pharmaceuticals, a company based in Martinsried, Germany, in May and last month was appointed vice-president of corporate development. Konys, who spent 15 years with Biogen in Cambridge, Massachusetts, before retiring last year, will operate Ingenium's new subsidiary in Boston. He left Biogen after turning 50 when he realized that, with his children through college and his house paid off, he didn't really need to work any more. Konys had envisioned an idyllic existence travelling, writing and upgrading his pilot skills. But a chance encounter with a venture capitalist, who understood that someone with 15 years of biotech experience is rare, led him back. Konys anticipates retiring again in five years — maybe.

The recent move from the public sector to a private company by Jaap Goudsmit has encouraged a fellow immunologist to take the plunge. Goudsmit is now senior vice-president, vaccine research, for Crucell, a biotechnology company based in Leiden, the Netherlands. In January, he will be joined by Ada Kruisbeek, who last month accepted an offer to become the company's senior vice-president, head of oncology and inflammatory diseases.

Ada Kruisbeek

Goudsmit is a co-founder of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and EuroVac, the European Union's AIDS vaccine effort. Before joining Crucell he was chairman of the University of Amsterdam's Research Institute for Infectious Diseases and the Institute for Science Education. He will remain affiliated with the university, and will continue his involvement in the IAVI and EuroVac. For the past 10 years, Kruisbeek has worked at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, first as chair of the department of immunology, and more recently as laboratory research coordinator for all research divisions.

BIOLOGY

The Beckman Institute at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has a new director. Biology professor Barbara Wold, who has been at Caltech since 1981, succeeds founding director Harry Gray, who will return to full-time professorial duties after running the institute for 15 years. Wold specializes in embryonic development and regeneration in vertebrates. She will lead the institute in its development of pioneering interdisciplinary work in biology and chemistry.

Olivier Pourquié

The Stowers Institute for Medical Research has attracted two more biologists to its campus in Kansas City, Missouri, including a French developmental biologist who has never previously worked outside France. Olivier Pourquié is currently an independent research group leader at the Developmental Biology Institute of Marseille. He will join the Stowers Institute as an associate scientist next June, along with Jennifer Gerton, who will be an assistant scientist with the institute after she completes a postdoc at the University of California, San Francisco.

GENOMICS

The Cornell Genomics Initiative Task Force, launched in 1997, continues to expand, with 18 members appointed by August. The most recent faculty to join are Rebecca Nelson, associate professor of plant pathology, who was a molecular pathologist at the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru; Teresa Gunn, assistant professor of genetics, who comes from a Stanford postdoc; Helene Marquis, assistant professor of bacteriology, who was previously an assistant professor of microbiology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver; and Marci Scidmore, assistant professor of microbiology and immunology, who was a senior staff fellow at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana. By 2005, the initiative is expected to have as many as 50 members.

PHYSICS

Jeffrey Jaffe last month replaced William Brinkman as research vice-president at Bell Labs. Jaffe has a background in software development. Before joining Lucent in 2000, Jaffe worked at IBM for 16 years. He has also advised the US government on Internet issues, including serving in 1997 on an advisory committee to President Bill Clinton's Commission for Critical Infrastructure Protection. Brinkman, who had been at Bell Labs since 1966, except for three years at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, will continue to serve as an adviser.

Erratum

In Movers in the 15 November issue of Naturejobs, the photograph captioned Andrew Webb is, in fact, a picture of Danny Powell. In addition, the second paragraph in the story about Webb's move starts with the word 'Lenox', this should read 'Webb'. Naturejobs apologizes for any confusion.