The French government has tapped a leading hepatitis C expert, Christian Bréchot, to head its biomedical research agency, INSERM. The decision to appoint a clinician to the post is in line with the government's urge to spur life scientists into producing more new therapies and products.
Bréchot--who heads the liver unit at the Necker Hospital and a hepatitis research center at the Pasteur Institute, both in Paris--takes the reins of the $450 million INSERM at a time when the agency's star is on the rise. It is believed that Bréchot's predecessor, clinician Claude Griscelli, who at 65 had reached the mandatory retirement age, last year won INSERM a 16% budget increase by beefing up research in government priority areas such as gene therapy. Bréchot, however, is eager to quell fears that he will favor clinical over basic research. "My major concern ... is to arrive at a better balance ," he told Science.
The government is hoping that the relatively young director--Bréchot is 48--can infuse fresh blood into INSERM, in which the average age of researchers has risen from 43 to 47 in the past decade. That won't be easy, says Gérard Orth, director of a papillomavirus unit at the Pasteur Institute. "He will have to be convincing" to persuade the government to create new jobs.
