|
Cambridge, Mass. (December 8, 2005) - The Whitehead
Institute Board of Directors has announced that faculty
Member David
Page has been elected the fourth Director of the
Institute. Page takes this position following his appointment
as Interim Director, which began in December, 2004.
“The Whitehead Board and I are delighted that
David Page has been elected Director of Whitehead,”
says Alex d’Arbeloff, Chairman of the Whitehead
Institute Board of Directors. “I have enjoyed
working with David since last fall and have found that
he has an amazing ability to listen and to lead. I know
that David will make significant contributions to the
future success of Whitehead, and I look forward to our
continued association.”
“I can’t think of anyone else who I’d
rather see leading the Institute at this point in time,”
says Susan Lindquist, Whitehead Member and Director
of the Institute from 2001 to 2004. “Not only
is David a brilliant scientist, but over the last year
he’s shown himself to be a leader. I'm excited
at the prospect of what’s in store for Whitehead
with David as Director, and I look forward to working
with him in this capacity.”
Gerald Fink, Director of the Institute from 1990 to
2001, has watched Page’s career blossom from the
time he was a student. “David has an uncanny sixth
sense that will help him guide the Whitehead,”
says Fink. “That sixth sense has two components:
a deep insight into the future direction of science
and a delightful sense of humor. The first is important
in steering the Institute as it enters into uncharted
waters and the second is key to buoying our hopes for
success as we venture ahead.”
| “To my mind, the Whitehead Institute is
an artist colony extraordinaire,” says Whitehead
Institute's new Director David Page. “My vision
is that in the years ahead we will continue to attract
the best young minds and provide them a place to
realize dreams.” |
David Baltimore, founding Director of Whitehead and
current President of California Institute of Technology,
says, “David is both an extraordinary scientist
and a level-headed, considerate and thoughtful person.
I believe he will make a great Director for the Whitehead
Institute at an important moment of renewal for this
great institution.”
Page’s own research will continue to focus on
the question of sex determination: How does the difference
in genetics between males (XY) and females (XX) result
in such different development and morphology? This question
has vexed scientists for years because it was commonly
thought that the Y chromosome was mostly junk DNA. For
this reason, many scientists were surprised when Page’s
laboratory embarked on the complete Y chromosome DNA
sequence.
But Page soon gained a reputation as the scientist who
restored dignity to the Y chromosome. “I often
say that the Y is the Rodney Dangerfield of the chromosome
world,” Page has joked. “It gets no respect.”
Nowhere was this lack of respect more apparent than
in one report announcing that the human Y would be extinct
in another 10 million years. The authors argued that
because the Y lacked a chromosome “mate”
to provide the material to fix any damaged genes, the
Y would eventually deteriorate. (All chromosomes come
in pairs, except for the Y, which is matched with the
X chromosome.)
Page and his collaborators surprised the scientific
world with two fundamental discoveries about the Y that
reversed these long-held beliefs. First, they discovered
that the Y chromosome had quite a few genes and these
were required for male fertility. Second, they found
that the Y chromosome had an amazing architecture. Through
sequencing the Y, Page and his collaborators at Washington
University School of Medicine in St. Louis discovered
that many of its genes were organized in palindromes,
long stretches of DNA read the same forwards and backwards—a
chromosomal equivalent of “Madam I’m Adam”.
If the “M” on Madam becomes mutated, the
chromosome could then fold into a hairpin and the “m”
in Adam would then swap the appropriate genetic material.
This self-correction mechanism permits the Y chromosome
to maintain the integrity of its genes and argues against
the demise of the Y.
“I believe the two roles of director and scientist
enhance one another,” says Page. “Keeping
my feet planted firmly in the day-to-day life of the
lab helps me be a more effective Director. And likewise,
being Director helps me see my lab’s work in the
context of the Institute’s scientific mission.
To my mind, the Whitehead Institute is an artist colony
extraordinaire. My vision is that in the years ahead
we will continue to attract the best young minds and
provide them a place to realize dreams.”
Page, who is also a professor of biology at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, graduated from Harvard Medical
School and the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology
Program in 1984 with a concentration in genetics. That
same year he came to Whitehead as one of the Institute’s
first Fellows. Two years later he became a faculty Member.
A Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Whitehead,
Page also is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes
that include the MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship
(1986), the Searle Scholar’s Award (1989), the
Amory Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
(1997), and the Curt Stern Award from the American Society
of Human Genetics (2003). In 2005, Page was elected
to the National Academy of Sciences.
|
