Geraldine Seydoux named SOM vice dean for basic research

Geraldine Seydoux, a professor of medical discovery in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, has been named vice dean for basic research. She will focus on implementation of the Fundamental Science Task Force's recent findings that identified five principal areas on which Hopkins researchers should concentrate to advance basic laboratory research here. Seydoux is an internationally renowned researcher on early embryo development in the worm Caenorhabditis, work that earned her election to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant.

More from the School of Medicine

• Stephen Baylin, a professor of oncology and medicine, co-director of the Cancer Biology Division, and associate director for research programs at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center; and Robert Siliciano, a professor of medicine and an investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Read more on the Hub.

• Paul Fuchs, a professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery and co-director of the Center for Sensory Biology, will serve a two-year term as the chair of the National Institutes of Health's Auditory System Study Section in the Center for Scientific Review. Fuchs has been a member of the study section for a year. It contributes significantly to the national biomedical research effort.

• James Potash will rejoin Johns Hopkins Medicine on July 1 as the Henry Phipps Professor and Director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He comes to Johns Hopkins from the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, where he is the Paul W. Penningroth Professor and head of the Department of Psychiatry. Potash, who spent the early part of his career at Johns Hopkins, is known for his research on the genetic basis of mood disorders, in particular the identification of genetic determinants of susceptibility to depression and bipolar disorder. He has authored more than 100 publications and collaborated on the revision of a leading textbook in the field, Manic-Depressive Illness. He holds an MPH from the Bloomberg School of Public Health and an MD from the School of Medicine.

• Corinne Sandone, an associate professor in Art as Applied to Medicine, has been appointed interim director of the department, succeeding Gary Lees, who is stepping down after 34 years at the department's helm. Lees will remain on the full-time faculty. Sandone has been director of the department's graduate program since 2013 and in 2015 served as president of the Association of Medical Illustrators.