Maggie Bartlett / NHGRI
main research institute in the nation dedicated to child development and reproductive health has a new director. Alan Guttmacher, 60, who was acting director of the Child Health and National Institute of Human Development, was appointed director of the NICHD yesterday by National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins.
Guttmacher, a geneticist and pediatrician, was deputy director of Collins when Collins led the National Institute for Research on the human genome; he became director of NHGRI acting after Collins resigned in August 08. Last December as new NIH Director Collins asked Guttmacher temporarily bar the NICHD $ 1.3 billion, according to the director of 23 years, Duane Alexander left after cost overruns for the National children's study, a long-term planned study of 100,000 children requested by Congress.
Vanderbilt University pediatrician Jonathan Gitlin, a member of the Advisory Board who NICHD Guttmacher known for many years, praises his leadership skills and "incredible enthusiasm and energy." Guttmacher has already begun to shape a plan strategic for the Institute. A member of the longstanding NICHD staff said "people are pretty comfortable" with him.
Guttmacher's uncle was president of Planned Parenthood in the 1960s and helped found the Guttmacher Institute, a think tank with offices in New York and Washington, which studies sexual health and reproductive. He spoke of his family (yes, he was named after his famous uncle), and his own battles with the disease in an interview New York Times earlier this year:
Q. You had your own personal experiences with genetic diseases, right?
A. Yes. It was ten years ago, I suffered a near fatal heart attack, and five years later, I was diagnosed with leukemia. My only risk factor for both was family history. It's ironic. In a family physician, I am the only medical geneticist. And I'm the one who has inherited diseases.
Both diseases have gave me an idea of the importance of the work we do at N.I.H. I, for example, feel that children growing up today with the genetic history of my family will not get leukemia when they reach my age. Because of advances in genetics and personalized medicine, there will be ways to prevent it from ever get away.
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