NIH DIRECTOR WYNGAARDEN LEAVING NIH AUGUST 1

Executive Summary

NIH DIRECTOR WYNGAARDEN LEAVING NIH AUGUST 1; newly appointed HHS Assistant Secretary for Health James Mason will chair a search committee for the new NIH director. Wyngaarden announced his resignation, which was requested by President Bush, at a senior staff meeting on April 20. Wyngaarden became the twelfth director of the agency in 1982. Prior to his appointment as NIH director, Wyngaarden was professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine at Duke University, a post he had held since 1967. Before joining Duke, Wyngaarden spent several years at NIH. From 1953-54, he was a research associate at what was then the National Heart Institute, and from 1954-56, he was a clinical associate at the former National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases. Wyngaarden is known as an authority on the regulation of purine biosynthesis and the genetics of gout. He served on several NIH study groups and review panels prior to becoming NIH director; he was also a consultant to the Office of Science and Technology from 1966 to 1972, and a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee from 1972 to 1973. A successor to Wyngaarden has not been named, but National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci has been rumored for months to be a leading candidate.