Philippe Busquin

As Nature Medicine went to press, physicist Philippe Busquin was preparing to be sworn in as Commissioner of DG12, to be renamed the Research Directorate, of the European Commission. He replaces Edith Cresson, about whom allegations of corruption brought the Commission to its knees in March this year.

Busquin, who began a political career as a socialist in 1977 after lecturing in the medical department of the Free University of Brussels, has been accused of having little experience of science policy for the past two decades. The only member of the 19-strong Commission not to receive a favorable report after questioning by the European Parliament at the start of September, Busquin will oversee the Fifth Framework Budget which totals EUC15 billion (US$15.5 billion). The Budget includes several biomedical research programs such as EUC190 million for 1998–2002 for study of the aging population; EUC300 million for infectious diseases and EUC1280 million for improving human research potential and the socio-economic knowledge base.