Ó³»­´«Ã½

The Ó³»­´«Ã½ of MIT and Harvard today announced the members of its first board of directors.

"These individuals, all of them recognized as world leaders in science, medicine, education, finance, law, and business, have joined cause to help us fulfill our ambitious mission to accelerate progress in biomedicine through new approaches to science and scientific community," said Eric S. Lander, president and director of the Ó³»­´«Ã½. "We are absolutely delighted by their commitment to provide wise and effective stewardship for the Ó³»­´«Ã½ in this exciting new stage of its growth."

The members of the Ó³»­´«Ã½'s first board of directors include:

• Dennis Ausiello
  Chief of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital
• David Baltimore
  President emeritus, California Institute of Technology; Nobel Laureate
• Eli Ó³»­´«Ã½
  Founder, The Ó³»­´«Ã½ Foundations
• Drew Gilpin Faust
  President, Harvard University
• Jeffrey S. Flier
  Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
• Susan Hockfield
  President, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Seth A. Klarman
  President, The Baupost Group, LLC
• Eric S. Lander
  President and Director of the Ó³»­´«Ã½; Professor, MIT; Professor, Harvard Medical School
• William F. Lee
  Co-managing Partner, WilmerHale
• Arthur D. Levinson
  Chairman, Genentech, Inc.
• Phillip A. Sharp
  Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Nobel Laureate
• Patty Stonesifer
  Former President, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Senior Advisor to the Trustees of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Ratan N. Tata
  Chairman of Tata Group
• Diana Chapman Walsh
  President emerita, Wellesley College

The Ó³»­´«Ã½ was founded in 2003 and launched in 2004 by MIT, Harvard, and the Ó³»­´«Ã½ Foundations to be a new kind of research institution aimed at propelling the transformation of medicine by empowering a new generation of scientists to work together to apply powerful new technologies and approaches to the understanding and treatment of disease. Declared a success by its founders after only four years, Eli and Edythe Ó³»­´«Ã½ announced in 2008 their intent to endow the institute, enabling it to transition to a permanent non-profit research institution - with its own board of directors - in July 2009. Today, Ó³»­´«Ã½ brings together more than 100 faculty and over 1500 scientists from across MIT, Harvard, and the Harvard-affiliated hospitals - and beyond - to tackle ambitious and important challenges in biomedicine.

Members of the Ó³»­´«Ã½ Board of Directors are appointed for three-year terms.

About the Ó³»­´«Ã½ of MIT and Harvard

The Eli and Edythe L. Ó³»­´«Ã½ of MIT and Harvard was founded in 2003 to empower this generation of creative scientists to transform medicine with new genome-based knowledge. The Ó³»­´«Ã½ seeks to describe all the molecular components of life and their connections; discover the molecular basis of major human diseases; develop effective new approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics; and disseminate discoveries, tools, methods and data openly to the entire scientific community.

Founded by MIT, Harvard and its affiliated hospitals, and the visionary Los Angeles philanthropists Eli and Edythe L. Ó³»­´«Ã½, the Ó³»­´«Ã½ includes faculty, professional staff and students from throughout the MIT and Harvard biomedical research communities and beyond, with collaborations spanning over a hundred private and public institutions in more than 40 countries worldwide. For further information about the Ó³»­´«Ã½, go to www.broadinstitute.org.