The president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, one of the largest private sources of funds for scientific research, announced today that he would step down in the spring of 2009 to return to teaching and research. Thomas R. Cech, who is also a faculty member at the University of Colorado at Boulder, will return full time to academe.
Mr. Cech oversaw the opening of Hughes’s first research campus, called Janelia Farm. “Continuity of leadership has been essential for Janelia Farm,” said Mr. Cech, in a prepared statement. “The ‘next great thing’ needs that same leadership commitment over an extended period of time.”
Mr. Cech shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1989. He was also a finalist for the open presidency at Harvard last year, but pulled out of contention. His research program at Colorado has continued during his tenure at Hughes. —Lila Guterman
