Contrary to the headline on a news item in last week's Nature (see Nature 389, 656; 1997), the medical geneticist Axel Kahn is not leaving the Cochin Institute of Molecular Genetics in Paris when he takes up his new position as deputy scientific director for health and agricultural biotechnology at Rhǒne-Poulenc. Although he will devote half his time to his new post, he will maintain his research activities at the institute. Kahn is also head of an INSERM unit at the institute, and not, as the article said, director of the institute itself. We apologize for the errors.