Paris—Almost the entire board of directors of the Pasteur Institute offered to step down in an unprecedented mass resignation on 12 January. The disaffected members say they hope the move will calm a long-simmering battle between Pasteur's president Philippe Kourilsky and other scientists and staff—particularly over a plan to relocate some Pasteur labs and offices from central Paris to an unpopular suburban site. The troubles had been escalating at Pasteur for months. Rumors and anonymous screeds have made the rounds via e-mail and the Web, and the crisis had eaten away at the institute's scientific mission, says Antoine Danchin, head of the Genetics of Bacterial Genomes unit and a member of the board. "People are no longer working. Everybody is upset," he says. "It's very bad for Pasteur."
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