Appointment pending. Zerhouni seems headed for NIH, and new scrap over stem cells.

Abstract

APPOINTMENT PENDINGThe Washington rumor mill was humming last week with reports that radiologist Elias Zerhouni of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine would be nominated as the next director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Although government officials declined to comment publicly as this issue of Science went to press, leaders of the U.S. biomedical establishment were taking it as a fait accompli. However, media reports on the expected nomination also pointed to a potential cloud on the horizon: Zerhouni's stance on the politically charged issue of using human embryonic stem cells in research.