High-profile departure ends genome institute's charmed run.

摘要

The personal divorce was final two years ago. The professional one dragged on until April, when Claire Fraser-Liggett left the organization headed by her ex-husband, genome scientist J. Craig Venter, to hoist her own flag over a new institute at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. As she left, the organization she shepherded to star status in the scientific world melted behind her: on 11 April, The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), over which Fraser-Liggett had presided since 1998, was absorbed into the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) and ceased to exist. Fraser-Liggett says her departure was spurred by the decision in October to make TIGR a division of the JCVI. "It was just unclear to me what my role in the new organization would be," she says. "[But] I want to emphasize that I am not looking to escape a bad situation." Venter, who is president and chair of the 500-employee JCVI, insists that little has changed. Genome sequencing, he said in a press release, will remain a "cornerstone" of the institute's activities, as will the microbial and plant sequencing that were TIGR's province.