Founding faculty

	Founding Members Gerald Fink (top left), Harvey Lodish (top right), Rudolf Jaenisch (bottom left) and Robert Weinberg

As the first Director of Whitehead Institute, David Baltimore gathered the Founding Members: renowned MIT scientists Harvey F. Lodish and Robert A. Weinberg; genetics pioneer Gerald R. Fink from Cornell University; and from Hamburg, Germany, Rudolf Jaenisch, a world leader in the young field of transgenic science.

Together with Jack Whitehead and the Institute's Associate Director John Pratt, these first Whitehead “partners in discovery” shaped the new institution. They worked with architects to generate the ideal physical environment for leading edge science; identified promising younger scientists who would become the first generation of Whitehead Members; and established the Whitehead Fellows Program, a unique vehicle for providing select PhD graduates the opportunity to run their own lab without first working as a postdoc.

Last updated September 10, 2006.