Silicon Genetics (Redwood City, CA) has announced the promotion of Saeid Akhtari to the position of president and chief executive officer. He succeeds Andrew Conway, who will continue in his role of executive chairman of the board of directors. Prior to joining the company as chief operating officer in 2001, Mr. Akhtari held senior management positions at Pharsight, DoubleTwist, IntelliGenetics, and Oxford Molecular Group.

Morphotek (Exton, PA) has announced the appointment of Mary Callan as vice president of business development. Dr. Callan was most recently director of business development at Exelixis.

Genentech (S. San Francisco, CA) has named Ian Clark senior vice president and general manager, bio-oncology. He joins the company from Novartis Canada, where he served as president.

Achillion Pharmaceuticals (New Haven, CT) has promoted Milind Deshpande to the position of vice president, drug discovery. This new role expands his previous duties as vice president, chemistry. Dr. Deshpande joined Achillion in 2001.

John Holaday has resigned from his posts as chairman, member of the board of directors, and chief scientific officer of EntreMed (Rockville, MD). Dr. Holaday co-founded EntreMed in 1992 and had served as chairman since November 1995. Dr. Holaday was also the company's CEO from August 1992 to November 2002, when he assumed the role of chief scientific officer. Replacing Dr. Holaday as chairman and a member of the board is Michael Tarnow, formerly president and CEO of Merck Frosst Canada and executive vice president of Merck-Medco. In addition, from 1995–2000, Mr. Tarnow was president and CEO of Creative BioMolecules.

Domantis (Cambridge, UK) has appointed Steve Holmes, formerly director of antibody discovery at Oxford GlycoSciences, as senior director, therapeutic targets. Prior to joining Oxford GlycoSciences, Dr. Holmes was head of high-throughput biology, Europe, at GlaxoSmithKline.

Privately held Rib-X Pharmaceuticals (New Haven, CT) has named Graham Johnson vice president of discovery, a newly created position. Dr. Johnson comes to Rib-X from Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he held such positions as vice president of discovery chemistry for the company's Wallingford, Connecticut facility, and interim vice president of neuroscience biology.

Ronald Krall has been appointed senior vice president, worldwide development, research and development at GlaxoSmithKline (Philadelphia, PA), with global responsibility for clinical development, medical affairs, and regulatory affairs. Most recently, he was senior vice president, US drug development at AstraZeneca, and was responsible for the company's US clinical and regulatory activities.

Vimal Mehta has been appointed senior vice president of business development at Inpharmatica (London). Most recently, he served as a senior business development manager at CuraGen.

Athersys (Cleveland, OH) has appointed George Milne to its board of directors. Dr. Milne held a variety of positions at Pfizer including president of central research and senior vice president with global responsibility for human and veterinary medicine R&D. He replaces George LeMaitre, who is resigning from the Athersys board to focus his efforts on managing the continued growth of LeMaitre Vascular, where he has served as CEO since 1992. Mr. LeMaitre served as director of Athersys since 1995.

Astex Technology (Cambridge, UK) has announced the appointment of David Rees to the position of director of medicinal chemistry. Dr. Rees was most recently with AstraZeneca, where he held the position of director and head of the medicinal chemistry department.

Edward M. Rubin has been named director of the US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (Walnut Creek, CA) and director of the genomics division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley, CA). Dr. Rubin joined LBNL in 1988 and became head of the lab's genome sciences department in 1998. He has served as interim director of JGI since spring 2002.

Metabolex (Hayward, CA) has named Harold Van Wart president and CEO. Dr. Van Wart joined the company in October 2000 as senior vice president of R&D, and was promoted to president and chief operating officer in May 2001. Prior to joining Metabolex, he was vice president and head of arthritis and fibrosis research at Roche Bioscience, as well as a member of the Roche Global Research Portfolio Committee.